OF CLASSIFICATION. 357 



our knowledge must be imperfect, and that 

 our " genius" is certainly not " equal to the 

 Majesty of Nature/' Nevertheless Linnaeus, 

 and all true philosophical botanists since the 

 first mention of the natural affinities of plants, 

 have ever considered them as the most im- 

 portant and interesting branch, or rather the 

 fundamental part, of systematical botany. 

 Without them the science is truly a study of 

 words, contributing nothing to enlarge, little 

 worthy to exercise, a rational mind. Lin- 

 naeus therefore su^o-ests a scheme which he 



CO 



modestly calls Fragments of a Natural Me- 

 thod, which formed the subject of his occa- 

 sional contemplation ; but he daily and hourly 

 studied the principles of natural affinities 

 among plants, conscious that no true know- 

 ledge of their distinctions, any more than of 

 their qualities, could be obtained without ; of 

 which important truth he was not only the 

 earliest, but ever the most strenuous assertor. 

 In the mean while, however, Linnaeus, well 

 aware that a natural classification was scarcely 

 ever to be completely discovered, and that if 

 discovered it would probably be too difficult 

 for common use, contrived an artificial sy- 



