LINNyEAN AND NATURAL ARRANGEMENTS OF PLANTS. 177 



practical application would not be much easier than the analytical tables of the 

 French botanists. 



But granting that the Linnoean system enables a person to find the name of a 

 plant easier than the natural system ; is this the ultimatum of the science of 

 Botany ? or is this the only delightful part of the study of Botany ? that for the 

 sake of it the system of Linnteus, although wholly inadequate to the purposes of 

 science, must not be condemned ? It may be pleasant to run about the hills and 

 vales of our own islands, and find a name for every blade and tiny weed that springs 

 beneath our feet ; but is it not just as pleasant, or much more so, to walk into our 

 gardens, nursery-grounds, or green-houses, and be able to know something of those 

 provisions in the vegetable kingdom which the Creator has made for other parts of 

 the world besides our own ? By studying Botany on the natural system we 

 may do this. We need not restrict our observations to plants indigenous to our 

 own soil, but may look upon the vegetable world as a whole, and instead of 

 learning the name and properties of a single plant, as by the Linnsean system, we 

 may, with the same labour, ascertain the structure and properties of a group of 

 plants, every individual of which may be recognised, from whatever part of the 

 world it may come. Now, if the name, structure, and properties of a family of 

 plants can be ascertained as easily by the natural system as the same particulars 

 of an individual plant by the Linnsean, and this information is as interesting in 

 the one case as in the other (the greater utility of the former cannot be doubted), 

 on what grounds can the latter system be said to offer " greater facilities for 

 tempting votaries to the temple of Flora V 



Another objection to the Linnaean system, is, that its advocates belong to a 

 school whose views are very far behind the advance made by the science of 

 Botany. Dr. Lindley observes, of the books written by them, that " the 

 technical language in which these works are written is far from accurate ; terms 

 are applied in them vaguely and erroneously, and they so abound with mis- 

 takes, most of which are at variance with all correct notions of the structure of 

 plants, that they are totally unfit to be placed in the hands of students." Now 

 if these charges are true, and no one who makes the science of Botany a study 

 can doubt it, it must be admitted, as a fair conclusion, that the system which 

 lies under them is " prejudicial to the advancement of the science of Botany:" 



No doubt many of the books of Linnaean botanists are written in a pleasing 

 style, and are calculated to allure to the study of Botany ; but this arises from 

 the authors of the works, and not from the system they are intended to explain. 

 Till within the last few years these were the only books that could be put into 

 the hands of a student, and before that time it was undoubtedly better that they 

 should be studied than none at all. But now that we have books explaining 

 the natural system, and adapted to the advanced state of the science, it is surely 

 vol. hi. — no. xix. 2 B 



