56 HISTORICAL EULOGIUM 



their characters do in nature ; and thus the leading principle of 

 tlie method, drawn from Nature herself, is the relative value 

 of characters. 



Again, how shall this relative importance of the characters, 

 that basis of the whole edifice of system, — how may it be ap- 

 preciated in its turn, with perfect certainty? Here two 

 equally sure criteria occurred to our naturalist; one, founded 

 upon reason, decides the value of any character by the im- 

 portance of the part to which it belongs. In a plant, every- 

 thing tends to the formation of the flower; and everything in 

 the flower, to the formation of the embryo or future plant. 

 Thus the formation of the embryo is the great object and end 

 of all other vegetable functions, and " there, consequently, "* 

 the embryo," says M. de Jussieu, " must naturalists look tor 

 primary characters." When this plan, derived from reason — 

 this rational plan, as it may be termed, fails, (and it soon does 

 so in Botany,) our author supplies its place with one that is 

 purely experimental, equally certain, and which is never- 

 failing. In default of the function which is unknown, or 

 imperfectly known, and therefore insufficient to decide on 

 the importance of an organ, he determines that importance 

 by the constancy of the organ. Nor is this all. It is with 

 every circumstance of an organ as with the organ itself; the 

 most constant and most general circumstance is invariably 

 the most important. Linnaeus has based his system on the 

 stamens ; their number, attachment, union, and proportion ; 

 the situation of these parts; he views all this, and employs it 

 all, and yet he does not perceive that amid all these characters 

 one alone is really valuable, because it alone is unvarying — 

 namely, the attachment of the stamens, or their insertion. 



Tournefort founded his system on the corolla. The absence, 

 presence, situation, division, and form of the corolla, all afford 

 him characters, variable though they be; while he overlooks 

 the importance belonging to the attachment of this organ, 

 which alone is constant. 



Both these great men failed of discovering the Natural Ordfr; 



