564 



the advanced state of botanical knowledge in the crypto- 

 gamic department. 



From the foregoing copious exposition of the general 

 principles, and many of the particular opinions of Lin 

 naeus, respecting a natural classification of plants, it will 

 appear how far he was from considering his performances, 

 in this line, as complete. His leading ideas may, never- 

 theless, be traced, and they will often be found to throw 

 great light upon the subject. It must be remembered 

 that he never thought his own, or any other, scheme of 

 natural classification, could or ought to interfere with 

 his artificial system, nor does he ever advert to the one 

 in treating of the other. It is evident, likewise, that he 

 studiously discouraged any attempt at an uniform defini- 

 tion, or technical discrimination, of his several orders. 

 He perceived that plants were not yet sufficiently known 

 to render such a scheme practicable. Possibly he might 

 be aware that the accomplishment of that scheme at pre- 

 sent would only turn his natural system into an artificial 

 one. 



The authors of most plans of botanical classification 

 have, on the other hand, seldom considered the questions 

 of natural and artificial arrangement, as opposed to each 

 other. The system of every such author seems to have 

 appeared to himself the most consonant to nature, as well 

 as the most convenient in practice ; yet nothing betrays 

 a more absolute incompetency to the subject than such 

 an idea, wherever it makes itself manifest. To pretend 

 that the elaborate speculations of a proficient, on a sub- 

 ject of which he can see but a part, and on which his 

 knowledge must necessarily be inferior to that infinite 

 wisdom which planned and perfected the whole, should 

 be an easy and certain mode of initiation for a learner, 

 evinces no more than that the professor wishes his pupil 

 should not be wiser than himself. To teach composition 

 without a grammar, or philology without an alphabet, 





