30 



CHAPTER Vk 



PRINCIPLES OF CLASSIFICATION. 



72. Ever since Botany has assumed the form of a 

 Science, Botanists have agreed that every prin- 

 ciple of Classification must be deduced from the 

 parts of fructification (52). 



73. All botanists are also agreed, in distinguish- 

 ing the Vegetable Kingdom into Classes, Orders, 

 Genera, and Species. 



74. Species are generally acknowledged to be per- 

 manently distinct, though liable to Varieties, and 

 occasionally to the production of intermediate 

 Species, by the access of the Pollen (58) of one, 

 to the Stigma (59) of another ; but such appear to 

 have only a transient duration. 



75. Genera, as far as they are rightly determined, 

 are considered by Linnaeus, and his scholars, as 

 no less natural than Species (73) ; but this opinion 

 is rejected by many botanists, especially of the 

 French school, even while they contend for the 

 existence of natural Orders. 



76. Classes and Orders, which are assemblages of 

 Genera (75), are either natural or artificial. 



77. Natural Classes and Orders (76) are such as ap- 



