400 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



her, and figure of parts are, in some measure, overshadowed and super- 

 seded by the rising perception of organic and vital relations ; and the 

 philosopher who aims at a Natural Method, while he is endeavoring 

 merely to explore the apartment in which he had placed himself, that 

 of Arrangement, is led beyond it, to a point where another light begins, 

 though dimly, to be seen ; he is brought within the influence of the 

 ideas of Organization and Life. 



The sciences which depend on these ideas will be the subject of our 

 consideration hereafter. But what has been said may perhaps serve to 

 explain the acknowledged and inevitable imperfection of the unphy- 

 siological Linnaean attempts towards a natural method. "Artificial 

 Classes are," Linnaeus says, " a substitute for Natural, till Natural are 

 detected." But we have not yet a Natural Method. " Nor," he says, 

 in the conversation above cited, " can we have a Natural Method ; for 

 a Natural Method implies Natural Classes and Orders; and these 

 Orders must have Characters." "And they," he adds in another place, 19 

 " who, though they cannot obtain a complete Natural Method, arrange 

 plants according to the fragments of such a method, to the rejection of 

 the Artificial, seem to me like persons who pull down a convenient 

 vaulted room, and set about building another, though they cannot turn 

 the vault which is to cover it." 



How far these considerations deterred other persons from turning 

 their main attention to a natural method, we shall shortly see ; but in 

 the mean time, we must complete the history of the Linnaean Reform. 



Sect. 6. Reception and Diffusion of the Linncean Reform. 



WE have already seen that Linnaeus received, from his own country, 

 honors and emoluments which mark his reputation as established, as 

 early as 1740; and by his publications, his lectures, and his personal 

 communications, he soon drew round him many disciples, whom he im- 

 pressed strongly with his own doctrines and methods. It would seem 

 that the sciences of classification tend, at least in modern times more 

 than other sciences, to collect about the chair of the teacher a large 

 body of zealous and obedient pupils ; Linnaeus and Werner were by far 

 the most powerful heads of schools of any men who appeared in the course 

 of the last century. Perhaps one reason of this is, that in these sciences, 

 sonsisting of such an enormous multitude of species, of descriptive 



19 Gen. Plant, in Prcelect. p. xii. 



