404 Mr. W. S. MacLeay's Examinatitm of 



of Linnaeus are the families of the present day. And not only the word 

 genus, but even the word specks, as you yourself say, has become more 

 confined in its signification. To say that the word genus had originally 

 any confined or determinate sense given to it by Linnseus, or that any 

 particular limits were assigned to it by him, beyond that perhaps of its 

 being his smallest known groupe of species, is sufficiently disproved, not 

 only by the impossibiUty of his making it to signify any thing else than 

 a groupe, but also by the fact, that the learned Swede was constantly, as 

 his knowledge of individuals increased, subdividing his early genera into 

 new ones. But however this may be, 1 beg you may rest assured that 

 every person who goes on increasing his acquaintance with the smaller 

 natural groupes, whether they be called genera or subgenera, or any thing 

 else, must know but too well that artificial systems aim at a different ob- 

 ject from the natural system. I should have fancied, indeed, that so 

 much was implied by the bare use of such terms as natural and artificial. 

 An artificial system aims at facilitating the distinction and nomencla- 

 ture of species, and not at the knowledge of how these species are con- 

 nected together in the one great plan of creation, which in fact is the 

 natural system. An artificial system, therefore, really aims at an ob- 

 ject, but the natural system is itself the object aimed at by those, who 

 truly know the difference between the two, and how trivial and contemp- 

 tible the most perfect acquaintance with the one is in comparison with 

 the smallest glimpse of the other. But you state that the natural system 

 has an object, namely, " to abridge the labour of reasoning !" If I know 

 what is meant by the natural system, it is as I have already stated, the 

 original plan of the creation, and to say, therefore, thJit the object of the 

 natural system, or rather of the Deity who devised it, was to abridge the 

 labour of reasoning, is beyond my comprehension, and still less can I 

 understand how it answers to the purpose thus assigned to it. 1 suspect, 

 indeed, the longer you study it, the less you will find your labour abridged. 

 At least such is the recorded experience of men who have dealt as much 

 in the observation of facts as in abstract reasoning. 



You favor us with the Linnean definition of a species, and then think 

 proper to throw doubt on its accuracy, because, as I conceive, you hap- 

 pened not at the moment to tarn over a page or two more of the Philo- 

 *ophia Botanica. I am not sufficient Botanist, perhaps, to understand 



