lxiv PREFACE. 



ficial, generally intelligible. To be understood by the mass of mankind, 

 it must be freed from all unnecessary technicalities, and must be essentially 

 founded upon such peculiarities as it requires no unusual powers of vision, 

 or of discrimination, to seize and apply : on the other hand, it is found by 

 experience, that unless it depends upon a consideration of every point of 

 structure, however numerous or various, however obscure or difficult of 

 access, it will not answer the end for which all classifications ought to be 

 designed, that of enabling the observer to judge of an unknown fact by a 

 known one, and to determine the mutual relations which one body or 

 being bears to another. 



In attempting to steer a middle course, the Author is by no means satis- 

 fied that he shall be found to have attained the end he has proposed to 

 himself. Botany is a most extensive science, involving a hundred thou- 

 sand gradations of structure, with myriads of minor modifications, and 

 extending over half the organic world ; the anatomical structure of the 

 beings it comprehends is so minute, and their laws of life are so obscure, 

 as to elude the keenest sight and to baffle the subtlest reasoning : so that 

 to render it as easy of attainment as the world, misled by specious fallacies, 

 is apt to believe it to be, is hopeless. There are, however, no difficulties 

 so great but they may be diminished ; and even a determination of the 

 relation which one part of the animated world bears to another, may be 

 simplified by analysis, and an exposition of the principles upon which 

 such relations are to be judged of. 



With this view, in the first place, the value of the characters of which 

 botanists make use are here carefully investigated, for the sake of pointing 

 out the relative importance of the principal modifications of structure in 

 the vegetable kingdom. In the second place, the characters of the orders 

 are analyzed by means of tables, in which the distinctive characters of each 

 are reduced to their simplest denomination. It is true that this kind of 

 analysis is attended by the evil of distracting attention from that general 

 and universal study of organization which the science demands, thus 

 having a manifest tendency to render the Natural System artificial ; and 

 that it is also apt to mislead the inexperienced or incautious observer, in 

 consequence of the many exceptions to which distinctive characters arc 

 frequently liable. But such evils are nothing compared with the confusion 

 and perplexity an unaided inquirer must experience in disentangling the 

 distinctions of orders for himself. It should also be borne in mind, that 

 analytical tables are mere artificial aids in investigation, to be abandoned 

 as soon as they cease to be indispensable. Many variations in the form 

 of such tables may be easily made ; and, in fact, the student cannot exer- 

 cise himself better than in contriving them for himself, as he may readily 

 do by beginning from some other point than that commenced with 

 here. 



