410 SYSTEMS OF CLASSIFICATION. 
CHAPTER 2. 
SYSTEMS OF CLASSIFICATION. 4 
WE have already stated that Systematic Botany has for its object 
the naming, describing, and arranging of plants in such a man- 
ner that we may readily ascertain their names, and at the same 
time get an insight into their affinities and general properties. 
Every system that has been devised for the arrangement of 
plants does not, however, comprise all the above points: for, 
while some systems are of value simply for affording us a ready 
means of ascertaining their names : others not only do this, but 
at the same time give us a knowledge of their affinities and pro- 
perties. Hence we divide the different systems of Classification 
under two heads ; namely, Artificial and Natural,—the former 
only necessarily enabling us to ascertain readily the name of a 
particular plant ; while the latter, if perfect, should comprise 
all the points which come within the object of Systematic 
Botany. The great aim of the botanist, therefore should be the 
development of a true Natural System; but in past times, 
Artificial Systems, more particularly that of Linnzus, have 
been of great value. Linnzeus himself never devised his system 
with any expectation or desire of its serving more than a tem- 
porary purpose, or as an introduction to the Natural System, 
when the materials for its formation had been obtained. 
In both artificial and natural systems, the lower divisions— 
namely, the genera and species—are the same, the difference 
between the systems consisting in the manner in which these 
divisions are grouped into orders, classes, and other higher 
groups. Thus in the Linnean and other artificial systems, one, 
or, at most, a few characters are arbitrarily selected, and all the 
plants in the Vegetable Kingdom are distributed under classes 
and orders according to the correspondence or difference of the 
several genera in such respects, no regard being had to any 
other characters. The plants in the classes and orders of an 
artificial system have, therefore, no necessary agreement with 
each other except in the characters selected for convenience as 
the types of those divisions respectively. Hence such a system 
may be compared to a dictionary, in which words are arranged, 
for convenience of reference, in an alphabetical order, adjacent 
words having no necessary agreement with each other, except 
in commencing with the same letter. In the Natural System, 
on the contrary, all the characters of the genera are taken into 
consideration, and those are grouped together into orders which 
correspond in the greatest number of important characters ; and 
the orders are again united, upon the same principles, into 
