424 
these various subjects, than it becomes in danger of 
plunging again into darkness by a neglect of them. 
The natural principles of arrangement for a scien- 
tific knowledge of plants and a permanent discrimi- 
nation of their families and species, have been no 
sooner distinguished (at the suggestion of Linnzus) 
from an artificial scheme for their convenient inves- 
tigation, than those different objects are confounded. 
“ Linneus read lectures on the natural orders of 
plants to his mest assiduous and accomplished 
pupils only. To begin to teach botany by these 
orders would be like putting Harris’s Hermes into 
the hand of an infant, instead of his horn-book.” 
