PREFACE. Xlll 



to point out it's merits and defects ; to mark 

 the genuine, as well as doubtful, Genera of 

 most Orders, and to give examples of all, with 

 such observations, sparingly introduced, as 

 may serve to throw light upon the subject. 

 Many of the genera for which Jussieu could 

 not find a place in his System, being now bet- 

 ter known, are here referred to their proper 

 Orders. After all, the reader must not con- 

 sider this publication as any thing like a com- 

 plete view of a Natural System, but rather, 

 to Use a French idea, as Memoirs tozvards a 

 System. Much still remains to be done by 

 future observers, and still more by future 

 systematic writers. It is evident that no such 

 mode of classification can, atpresent, serve the 

 purposes of analytical investigation, to make 

 out an unknown plant. That is the exclusive 

 object of the Artificial System of Linnaeus, 

 which, of all the schemes hitherto contrived, 

 is alone, perhaps, universally applicable to 

 the end in question. A tacit conviction of this 

 truth seems to be the source of great enmity, 

 in many of the disciples of Jussieu, towards 

 that System, which aims no hostility or rival- 

 ship against them. A dictionary quarrels not 



