PROF. CREPIN : CONSIDERATIONS ON THE TEHM " SPECIES." 847 



the term, as any one may be readily convinced, hy simply casting his eye over 

 the table of sp'ecies in the first part of the first volume of his new work, 

 entitled " Diagnoses d'esjyecen nouvelles oil meconnus pour servir de jriateHaux 

 a line Flore reformae de la France et des Contrees voisines'^ One is literally 

 astounded on considering the great number of types, altogether new, described 

 in this volume. When we reflect on this prodigious augmentation of 274 

 new species for 29 generic groups alone, we ask with astonishment to what 

 enormous figures the flora of Europe, or that of the entire world, nmst be 

 raised, when all the forms of equal value with those described in the Diag- 

 noses are recognised and determined ; we scarcely dare to think of it. M. 

 Jordan seems to have foreseen the astonishment which his work was calcula- 

 ted to produce, for he says in his preface : — 



" On the appearance of so many new species, almost all observed in 

 France, a country the flora of which passes as perfectly kno^vn, many persons 

 will be unable to repress a feeling of distrust, or to say the least, of a certain 

 amount of astonishment. There is no doubt, among Botanists, a certain 

 number who have, after our example, advanced some steps in this way of 

 criticism, in which experiment always serves to guide and control analysis. 

 These have already conceived the extent of the field before us, and Avill not 

 be surprised at a result which they could foresee ; but others, who are not 

 yet initiated in this kind of study, or whose researches have been in quite a 

 different direction, will be somewhat scandalized with such a result, and will 

 even believe themselves transported into the realms of fancy, where arbitrary 

 conceptions, and simple hypotheses, are made to a2)pear as real facts. We 

 consider ourselves bound, then, to dissipate this distrust, by a clear and frank 

 explanation of the path we have folloAved, and the end at whicli we aimed 

 and have attained to."^ 



For ourselves we are neither astonished nor scandalized at such an aval- 

 anche of new creations j we could foresee the result as soon as we found out 

 the criterion of the new school, and above all, the manner in which the 

 criterion was to be made use of. Wliat then is this criterion ? We will 

 again refer to M. Jordan's book, and it will furnish the answer : — " Let us 

 say, at the outset, that we have not for one moment quitted the region of 

 positive reality ; also that it is not hypotheses, but material facts tliat we 

 have to produce. It is not a certain method of observation, nor a certain 



(2) One vol., Large 8vo. of 355 pages. Lyon, 1864. 

 (3) Loc cit., p. 5, 6. 



