THE NATURAL SYSTEM. 113 
form of analytical tables, to be used simply as a guide in the analysis.of plants, 
to point the learner to the place in the Natural System which his specimen 
occupies. 
340. The artificial arrangement consists of classes, orders, 
genera, and species. The two latter are the same as in the nat- 
ural system (50,51), and the two higher divisions, classes and » 
orders, have already beew seen (74, 80) to be founded upon 
the number, situation, and connection of the stamens and 
pistils. | 
CHAPTER Vi. 
OF THE NATURAL SYSTEM. 
341. Ir is the aim of the Natural System to associate in the 
same divisions and groups, those plants which have the greatest 
general resemblance to each other, not only in aspect and struc- 
ture, but also in properties. 
342. While the artificial arrangement employs only a simgle 
character in classification, the natural seizes upon every charac- 
ter in which plants agree or disagree with each other. Thus, 
those plants which correspond in the greatest number of points 
will be associated in the smaller and lower divisions, as species 
and genera, while those corresponding in fewer points will be 
assembled in divisions of higher rank. 
343. By an acquaintance, therefore, with the characters of 
each of the families of the Natural System, we may at once 
determine to which of them any new plant belongs, what are 
its affinities with others, and what are its poisonous or useful 
properties. . 
344. Although the aim of this System is as above stated, yet 
the full consummation of it is still reserved for a future age. At 
present, though greatly advanced, we are still obliged to call in 
the aid of artificial characters, where Nature is as yet too pro- 
found for ordinary skill. Such aid is, for example, employed in 
_ the first subdivision of Angiosperms. 
