346 ^'li'-' NATURALIST. 



of species than of individuals ; they are the primary groups which should be 

 estahlished by the comparison of similar forms, and not true species. The 

 greater number of descriptive botanists and monographists since the time of 

 Linneus, and more particularly the authors of the great systematic works, 

 lilce him, have established nearly all their species from materials found in 

 herharia, and on very insufficient data. The limits which they have assigned 

 to them are in general purely arbitrary. Further, the specific types admitted 

 by them, do not at all correspond with the reality, and may be fitly compared 

 to landmarks placed at nearly e(puil intervals to mark out a new route" ^ 



Evidently there is some truth in these remarks, for Linneus and those 

 who have followed his method of determining species, were not in tlie pos- 

 session of any good criterion wherewith to test the truth of their creations. 

 As M. Jordan well says, in admitting to the rank of species only those which 

 might readily be distinguished at first sight, and of which the description 

 was easily rendered, have they not, in a great number of instances, united 

 together many distinct forms, which instead of constituting species by their 

 union, ought to form groups of species 1 That this should be so is very pos- 

 sible : the botanist of Lyons is profoundly convinced that this is the case 

 with the great majority of the old types, and thus he is led to divide a large 

 proportion of them into a more or less considerable number of new species. 

 Linneus, therefore, could not have known what constituted a true species, 

 but took for such Avliat afterwards should become generic groups : the botan- 

 ists of the last century, and those too of our own, who liave followed in the 

 Linnean errors, must only have arrived at the genera, and have left for our 

 task to discover, by a more delicate analysis and research, what is a veritable 

 species. This is a progression wliich need not surprise those who have atten- 

 tively followed the constantly ascending path of the experimental sciences. 

 In chemistry, have we not seen an analogous progress realized ; substances 

 which for a long time had been considered as simple bodies, havmg been 

 shewn in later times to be really compound ones ? All then should be re- 

 formed ; our Floras, our species, and even our genera, must again be weighed 

 in the balance, and completely re-founded. 



Already, for several years, the work of reformation has been going on, 

 though timidly ; but now M. Jordan has strongly shaken the ancient edifice. 

 He first demolishes it, and then proceeds to rebuild it again, making use of 

 but little of the old materials. He makes a revolution, in the full force of 



(1) Diagnoses, p. 11, 12. 



