PROGRESS TOWARDS A NATURAL SYSTEM. 



permanent influence on the formation .of natural classes. Adanson's 

 attempt, bold and ingenious, belonged, both in time and character, to 

 a somewhat earlier stage of the subject. 3 Enthusiastic and laborious 

 beyond belief, but self-confident, and contemptuous of the labors of 

 others, Michael Adanson had collected, during five years spent in 

 Senegal, an enormous mass of knowledge and materials ; and had 

 formed plans for the systems which he conceived himself thus em- 

 powered to reach, far beyond the strength and the lot of man. 4 In 

 his Families of Plants, however, all agree that his labors were of real 

 value to the science. The method which he followed is thus described 

 by his eloquent and philosophical eulogist. 5 



Considering each organ by itself, he formed, by pursuing its various 

 modifications, a system of division, in which he arranged all known 

 species according to that organ alone. Doing the same for another 

 organ, and another, and so for many, he constructed a collection of 

 systems of arrangement, each artificial, each founded upon one 

 assumed organ. The species which come together in all these systems 

 are, of all, naturally the nearest to each other ; those which are 

 separated in a few of the systems, but contiguous in the greatest 

 number, are naturally near to each other, though less near than the 

 former; those which are separated in a greater number, are further 

 removed from each other in nature ; and they are the more removed, 

 the fewer are the systems in which they are associated. 



Thus, by this method, we obtain the means of estimating precisely 

 the degree of natural affinity of all the species which our. systems 

 include, independent of a physiological knowledge of the influence of 

 the organs. But the method has, Cuvier adds, the inconvenience of 

 presupposing another kind of knowledge, which, though it belongs 

 only to descriptive natural history, is no less difficult to obtain ; the 

 knowledge, namely, of all species, and of all the organs of each. A 

 single one neglected, may lead to relations the most false ; and Adan- 

 son himself, in spite of the immense number of his observations, 

 exemplifies this in some instances. 



We may add, that in the division of the structure into organs, ami 

 in the estimation of the gradations of these in each artificial system, 

 there is still room for arbitrary assumption. 



In the mean time, the two Jussieus had presented to the world a 

 "Natural Method," which produced a stronger impression than the 



Families des Plantes, 1 W 63. 4 Cuvier's Eloye. 5 Cuv. E'oycs, torn. i. p. 282 



