^46 Sir Edward Ffrench Bromhead on the Arrangement of 



writers of every method, he found various assemblages already 

 formed^ and he adopted them. His research could not fail of 

 success, if we consider that the force of development in different 

 parts of the natural system may be thrown upon almost any 

 class of organs, so that distinctions essential in one part may be 

 upimportant in another, and every partial method may offer 

 some natural combinations. Linnaeus established here also the 

 great principle, '' that the natural assemblage must first be 

 sought for, and the ordinal difference subsequently.*" So tenaci- 

 ously did he hold to this, that Giseke informs us of his obstinate 

 resistance to any thing like definition in the then state of the 

 science, and he even encouraged an idea that the thing was im- 

 possible. Yet this great man ruined his own sketch, by falling 

 into this very error, and allowing his great ingenuity to contrive 

 descriptive instead of trivial names for the greater part of his 

 families. He thus lost the glory of being named the father of 

 the natural botanical system, and has in the same manner entail- 

 ed theoretic names in zoology, which have long cramped the pro- 

 gress of Natural History. 



That truly wonderful man Bernard Jussieu took up the sub- 

 ject, adopted Linnaeus''s sound orders, discovered new ones, and 

 discovered the affinities of many of these orders to each other. 

 He adopted trivial names, and, as might be expected, descrip- 

 tive and differential characters rapidly presented themselves to 

 Adanson, and perhaps to others. At last the immortal Antoine 

 Jjaurent Jussieu presented this system with several new families, 

 and the whole more or less accurately limited. He, however, 

 yielded to the taste of the day, and, seizing on a character of 

 great range, discovered by Gleditsch, who wished to modify Lin- 

 naeus''s artificial system by means of the adhesion of the stamens 

 to the calyx, he applied the principle to the natural families, 

 and thus threw them into artificial groups. This artificial ar- 

 rangement of the natural orders has at last fallen to pieces, and 

 the science is now a mass of confusion, presenting almost as 

 many unarranged families and tribes as there were genera in 

 the time of Tournefort. 



The course to be pursued in this emergency is pointed out in 

 theLinnean manuscripts, from which interesting extracts are sub- 

 joined to Sir James Smith's Grammar of Botany. Here Lin- 

 pc^iis has thrown his natural families into separate natural 



