1?5 



ON THE RELATIVE ADVANTAGES OF THE LINN^EAN AND 

 NATURAL ARRANGEMENTS OF PLANTS. 



By Edwin Lankester, 

 Member of the Royal College of Surgeons. 



In your last number (p. 68) your talented contributor, Mr. Lees, has furnished 

 a notice of botanical works, which I should have been glad to have found occupy- 

 ing the place of my brief communication in your December number (Vol. II., 

 p. 470). I should not have troubled you with any remarks on Mr. Lees' paper 

 but that he has asserted that the rejection of the Linnsean system is "unphiloso- 

 phical," and that the reason of it appears to him to be " merely because in some 

 respects it seems to offer greater facilities for tempting votaries to the temple of 

 Flora." In making the remark I did, in my communication of December last, 

 on the Ladies Botany, I stated that Dr. Lindley discarded the artificial system 

 as prejudicial to the science of Botany, and gave no opinion of my own on the 

 subject ; therefore Mr. Lees was premature in disagreeing with me on that point. 

 As, however, many of your readers may wish to know why so competent a 

 botanist as Dr. Lindley deems the Linnsean system prejudicial to the advance- 

 ment of the science of Botany, I will endeavour to state a few objections to that 

 system ; and, whatever may be their force or value, I hope they will find the 

 Doctor, and those who adopt his views, at least " not guilty " of the charge 

 brought against them by Mr. Lees. 



It cannot be supposed that Mr. Lees or any other botanist would deny the 

 superiority of the natural over the artificial system in a scientific point of view. 

 In every department of knowledge the value of a natural arrangement of its objects 

 is acknowledged, and the most eminent naturalists have laboured to improve 

 this department of science. The question at issue must then be, whether the 

 adoption of the Linnsean system at all is injurious to the interests of Botany 

 as a science ? 



In the first place, it must' be admitted, that the general adoption of any system 

 which excludes a better from being brought into use must be prejudicial to 

 science. It is not certainly necessary that the natural system of Botany should 

 be neglected because the Linnsean has been adopted, but unfortunately this is 

 too often the case, and systems are frequently adopted and adhered to as matters 

 of feeling and not as matters of judgment. Hence it is of importance to science 

 that those commencing their career should not have their prejudices enlisted on 

 the side of false theories or exploded systems, especially when the means of 

 obtaining correct views are easily attainable. 



By the study, also, of an artificial system the mind is apt to suppose itself 



