BEFORE OF LINNAEUS. 395 



matter of bis science, induced other persons to defer to him in what 

 concerned its form ; especially when his precepts were, for the most 

 part, recommended strongly both by convenience and elegance. The 

 trivial names of the Species Plantarum were generally received ; and 

 though some of the details may have been altered, the immense advan 

 tage of the scheme ensures its perrcanence. 



Sect. 4. Linnceus's Artificial System. 



WE have already seen, that, from the time of Caesalpinus, botanists had 

 been endeavoring to frame a systematic arrangement of plants. All 

 such arrangements were necessarily both artificial and natural : they 

 were artificial, inasmuch as they depended upon assumed principles, 

 the number, form, and position of certain parts, by the application of 

 which the whole vegetable kingdom was imperatively subdivided ; 

 they were natural, inasmuch as the justification of this division was, 

 that it brought together those plants which were naturally related. No 

 system of arrangement, for instance, would have been tolerated which, 

 in a great proportion of cases, separated into distant parts of the plan 

 the different species of the same genus. As far as the main body of 

 the genera, at least, all systems are natural. 



But beginning from this line, we may construct our systems wiih 

 two opposite purposes, according as we endeavor to carry our assumed 

 principle of division rigorously and consistently through the system, or 

 as we wish to associate natural families of a wider kind than genera. 

 The former propensity leads to an artificial, the latter to a natural 

 method. Each is a System of Plants ; but in the first, the emphasis 

 is thrown on the former word of the title, in the other, on the latter. 



The strongest recommendation of an artificial system, (besides its 

 approaching to a natural method,) is, that it shall be capable of easy 

 use ; for which purpose, the facts on which it depends must be appa- 

 rent in their relations, and universal in their occurrence. The system 

 of Linnaeus, founded upon the number, position, and other circum- 

 stances of the stamina and pistils, the reproductive organs of the plants, 

 possessed this merit in an eminent degree, as far as these characters are 

 concerned ; that is, as far as the classes and orders. In its further sub- 

 division into genera, its superiority was mainly due to the exact obser- 

 vation and description, which we have already had to notice as talents 

 which Linnaeus peculiarly possessed. 



The Linna?an system of plants was more definite than that of Tour 



