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thority in matters of science, grudging England her New- 

 ton, and Sweden her Linnaeus, has attempted to make a 

 schism in botany, as in other departments of knowledge. 

 But these are the contemptible aims of second-rate cha- 

 racters. 



The illustrious Frenchman Bernard de Jussieu, the 

 early and confidential friend of Linnaeus, conceived a phi- 

 losophical idea of natural orders of plants, and conferred 

 on the subject with the only man whom he found capable 

 of appreciating or understanding them. He, in his letters 

 to Linnaeus, even gives hira the honour of having first 

 formed a scheme of natural orders of plants. However 

 this may be, they certainly laboured for some time in con- 

 junction. Afterwards Linnaeus pursued his own course 

 alone ; and the first and most important result was the 

 assertion of a principle to which I have already alluded, 

 — that natural and artificial classification are in themselves 

 essentially distinct, and calculated for purposes altogether 

 incompatible with each other. This may be easily il- 

 lustrated. That the distinction of one species of plant 

 from another is strictly natural, no one will deny. Such 

 a distinction is not only obviously founded in nature, but 

 is confirmed, as clearly as possible, by experience, in the 

 vegetable as well as the animal kingdom. Varieties among 

 plants do, indeed, often arise from seed, originating in 

 various causes ; which causes are, as yet, very imperfectly 

 known. But the experience of every day teaches, that 

 such varieties are but of limited duration. They are aber- 

 rations from the regular plan of Nature, which she is ever 

 checking and defeating. As far as any observation or 

 record extends, no permanent change has taken place in 

 any known species of plant. On the contrary, the history 

 of those variations which have most attracted notice, as in 

 eatable fruits and ornamental flowers, shows very distinctly 

 that each has but a limited and uncertain duration. This 

 fact being more clearly demonstrated by Linnaeus than it 

 had previously been, he advanced a step further, and as- 



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