the Natural Botanical Families. 847 



groups, unincumbered by hasty definition or theoretic nomen- 

 clature. Such is the true principle of the inductive philosophy, 

 where analysis precedes synthesis, and definition follows know- 

 ledge.* 



At this time we may observe a general tendency to artificial 

 classification and theoretic names, especially among the many 

 most able continental botanists. 



We should, on the contrary, throw the families into natural 

 groups, and ajlerzvards endeavour to discover some differential 

 characters for those groups, and for series of such groups. Who* 

 ever attempts arrangement through the discovery of a key (and 

 every botanist has attempted it), will infallibly be disappointed. 

 Neither will he be more successful in attempting to place families 

 in a natural series by their individual relation ; wherever he be- 

 gins, he will find, after some steps, that he ends where he began, 

 or that the families, by which the series is continued, are so ut- 

 terly unconnected with what went before, that he resigns the at- 

 tempt in despair. There is indeed much difficulty in the forma- 

 tion of natural groups, and a still greater difficulty in the arrange- 

 ment of those groups with reference to each other. We cannot 

 call a scheme satisfactory until the maximum of allied families is 

 brought together, nor until each family is placed between two 

 others to which it is more closely related than to any other. The 

 materials for judging of these affinities are more copious than we 

 could have expected : several of Jussieu''s groups are tolerably 

 natural, and in the larger groups there was free opportunity for 

 placing the more nearly allied families in juxtaposition with a 

 judgment passed upon their proximity ; Linnaeus'^s views also 

 remain unfettered by Jussieu's artificial method. The idea 

 thrown out by Linnaeus, that families may be related as on a 

 map, has also most happily given liberty to the opinions of 

 writers of all schools, who felt the defects of existing methods, 

 and who could not detect the arrangement of nature. This was 

 in fact impossible amidst the confusion of orders not yet definite- 

 ly established, or confounded with others of very different rela- 

 tion, — a difficulty partly arising from the unwillingness of bo- 

 tanists to increase the number of families, already too numerous 

 for the existing arrangements. 



• See some excellent philosophical remarks by Profesaor Whewell. 



