ol4 NATURAL SYSTEM 



most learned botanical work that has appeared since the 

 Speices Plantarum of Linnaeus, and the most useful to 

 those who study the philosophy of botanical arrange- 

 ment. The aim of this excellent author is to bring the 

 genera of plants together as much as possible according 

 to their natural affinities ; constructing his Classes and 

 Orders rather from an enlarged and general view of those 

 affinities, than from technical characters previously as- 

 sumed for each Class or Order ; except great and pri- 

 mary divisions, derived chiefly from the Cotyledons, 

 the Petals, and the insertion of the Stamens. But his 

 characters are so far from absolute, that at the end of 

 almost every Order we find a number of genera merely 

 related to it, and not properly belonging to it, and at the 

 end of the system a very large assemblage of genera in- 

 capable of being referred to any Order whatever. Nor 

 could a learner possibly use this system as a dictionary, 

 so as to find out any unknown plant. The characters 

 of the Orders are necessarily, in proportion as those Or- 

 ders are natural, so widely and loosely constructed, that 

 a student has no where to fix ; and in proportion as they 

 are here and there more defined, this, or any other sys- 

 tem, becomes artificial, and liable to the more excep- 

 tions. The way therefore to use this valuable work, so 

 as to ascertain an unknown plant, is, after turning to the 

 Order or Genus to which we conceive it most probably 

 allied, to read and study the characters and observations 

 there brought together, as well as all to which they may 

 allude. We shall find we learn more from the doubts 

 and queries of Jussieu than from the assertions of most 

 other writers. ' We shall readily ■ perceive whether our 



