168 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



luable work, which may justly be said to have 

 given a more popular, as well as a more phi- 

 losophical shape to the studies it recommends, 

 than they ever before possessed, he assures us, 

 from personal experience, that every spot of 

 ground, in its natural state, has individual beau- 

 ties of the vegetable kind, which are fit to occupy 

 considerable attention ; — and that those seem to 

 have been productive of the greatest number of 

 species, which have been most explored. 



The thought is not new with naturalists. It 

 scarce reaches the extent of a favourite specula- 

 tion indulged by the interesting but fantastical 

 St. Pierre. With him, the vegetable world had 

 scarcely any limits. For, as he asserts, " if the 

 surface of this globe were examined, each square 

 mile of territory would be found to contain, be- 

 sides many varieties, some one species peculiar 

 to itself." 



This assertion carries the encouragement to 

 exertion too far ; and, while it bears the aspect 

 of romance, has a still greater objection to oppose 

 it — that it would swell the catalogue of our Flora 

 to the extent of sixty millions of species, far be- 

 yond the adjustment of the most ingenious and 

 diligent classifier. 



