370 ' PRINCIPLES 



to take, in the former instance, the calyx, 

 corolla, stamens, pistils, seed-vessel, seed 

 and receptacle, and in the latter, the root, 

 stem, leaves, appendages, flower and fruit, 

 in the order in which they naturally occur. 



Nomenclature is no less essential a branch 

 of methodical science than characteristic de- 

 finitions ; for, unless some fixed laws, or, in 

 other words, good sense and perspicuity, be 

 attended to in this department, great con- 

 fusion and uncertainty must ensue. 



The vague names of natural objects handed 

 down to us, in various languages, from all 

 antiquity, could have no uniformity of de- 

 rivation or plan in any of those languages. 

 Their different origins may be imagined, but 

 cannot be traced. Many of these, furnished 

 by the Greek or Latin, are retained as ge- 

 neric names in scientific botany, though nei- 

 ther their precise meaning, nor even the 

 plants to which they originally belonged, can 

 always be determined, as Piosa, Ficus, Pi- 

 per, &c. It is sufficient that those to which 

 they are now, by common consent, applied, 

 should be defined and fixed. Botanists of 

 the Linnaean school, however, admit no such 



