KEFORM OF LJXXJEUS. 391 



guage is learnt ; that is, the reader must connect the terms immedi- 

 ately with his own sensations and notions, and not mediately, through 

 a verbal explanation ; he must not have to guess their meaning, or to 

 discover it by a separate act of interpretation into more familiar lan- 

 guage as often as they occur. The language of botany must be the 

 botanist's most familiar tongue. When the student has thus learnt to 

 think in botanical language, it is no idle distinction to tell him that a 

 bunch of grapes is not a cluster ; that is, a thyrsus not a raceme. And 

 the terminology of botany is then felt to be a useful implement, not an 

 oppressive burden. It is only the schoolboy that complains of the irk- 

 someness of his grammar and vocabulary. The accomplished student 

 possesses them without effort or inconvenience. 



As to the other question, whether the construction of such a botanical 

 grammar and vocabulary implies an extensive and accurate acquaint- 

 ance with the facts of nature, no one can doubt who is familiar with 

 any descriptive science. It is true, that a person might construct an 

 arbitrary scheme of distinctions and appellations, with no attention to 

 natural objects ; and this is what shallow and self-confident persons 

 often set about doing, in some branch of knowledge with which they 

 are imperfectly acquainted. But the slightest attempt to use such a 

 phraseology leads to confusion ; and any continued use of it leads to 

 its demolition. Like a garment which does not fit us, if we attempt 

 to work in it we tear it in pieces. 



The formation of a good descriptive language is, in fact, an induc- 

 tive process of the same kind as those which we have already noticed 

 in the progress of natural history. It requires the discovery of fixed 

 characters, which discovery is to be marked and fixed, like other 

 inductive steps, by appropriate technical terms. The characters must 

 be so far fixed, that the things which they connect must have a more 

 permanent and real association than the things which they leave un- 

 connected. If one bunch of grapes were really a racemus, and ano- 

 ther a thyrsus, according to the definition of these terms, this part of 

 the Linnsean language would lose its value; because it would no 

 longer enable us to assert a general proposition with respect to one 

 kind of plants. 



Sect. 3. Linncean Reform of Botanical Nomenclature. 



IN the ancient writers each recognized kind of plants had a distinct 

 name. The establishment of Genera led to the practice of designating 



