272 OF A NATURAL MODE OF CLASSIFICATION^. 



than satisfactory. But as we proceed in this path, we 

 soon find ourselves in a labyrinth. The natural orders 

 and families of plants, so far from being connected in a 

 regular series, approach one another by so many points, 

 as to bewilder instead of directini^ us. We niav seize 

 some striking combinations and analogies : but the 

 further we proceed, the more we become sensible that» 

 even if we had the whole vegetable world before us at 

 one view, our knowledge must be imperfect, and that 

 our " genius" is certainly not " equal to the Majesty 

 of Nature." Nevertheless Linnaeus, and all true phi- 

 losophical botanists, since the lirst mention of the na- 

 tural afRnities of pla^nts, have ever considered tliem as 

 the most important and interesting branch, or rather 

 the fundamental part, of systematical botany. With- 

 out them the science is trul} a study of words, con- 

 tributing nothing to enlarge, little worthy to exercise, 

 a rational mind. Linnaeus therefore sufxjzests a scheme 



CO 



which he modestly calls Fragments of a Natural 

 Method, whicli formed the subject of his occasional 

 contemplation ; but he daily and hourly studied the 

 principles of natural afFinities among plants, conscious 

 that no true knov/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, hov/ever, Linn?eus, well aware 

 that a natural classification was scarcely ever to be 



