Arrangements of Plants. 21 



" This system," says Ventenat, " has had its partisans and 

 its critics. Some have said with Roy en us, 



' Si quid habent veri vatis prassagia, Flora; 



Structa super lapidem non ruet haecce domus ;' 



whilst others have not hesitated to assert with Alston, that the 

 sexual system is full of difficulties, and that it is the least na- 

 tural of all those that have been invented for the classification 

 of plants. 



" At this period," continues M. Ventenat, " when experi- 

 ence has enabled us to appreciate the value of the sexual sy- 

 stem, and envy and adulation are alike removed, we may 

 assert, without fear of being suspected of partiality, that Lin- 

 naeus has himself acknowledged the inconveiiiencies attending 

 the sexual system. This man of genius did not suffer himself 

 to be seduced by the delusions of self-love ; and he has frankly 

 acknowledged that his principles had sometimes compelled 

 him to deviate from the track of nature. — Let us not however 

 attach to the sexual method greater importance than was given 

 to it by its author. Those who have read his works ought to 

 know that artificial methods were only considered by him as 

 introductory to the natural method. — In fact, the celebrated 

 naturalist of Upsal was all his life a zealous defender of na- 

 tural combinations, as may be proved, in the first place, by 

 different axioms interspersed in his works. 2. In the Eulogia 

 which he has conferred on those botanists who have endea- 

 voured to follow the traces of nature. 3. In the fragments 

 which he has left us of natural orders, and at which he never 

 ceased to labour*." After quoting a passage from Linnaeus 

 in justification of these sentiments -f, he adds, " It is remark- 

 able that this great man, after having in his public lectures 

 demonstrated plants according to the sexual system, in his 

 private conferences with his most distinguished pupils deve- 

 loped the principles by which he had been guided in the esta- 

 blishment of his natural orders, and by his learned disserta- 

 tions prepared the way which led to the perfect knowledge of 

 vegetable productions^:." 



Now if, by these and similar observations, it be meant merely 

 to prove that Linnteus was fully convinced of the importance 

 of studying the natural affinities of plants, and that he consi- 



* Vcnlcnat, Discours sur la Botanique. V. Tableau dii Rcgne Vegvlal, 

 t. i. pp. 17, 18. 



f " Dici et ii'^o circa mctlioduin naturaiem inveniendam elaboravi ; bene 

 multa qua; adderem obtiniii; perficerenon potui, continuatiirus dimi vix- 

 ero. Iiitei'im qua; novi proponain. Qui paucas qiue restant bene absolvit 

 piantas, omnibus iMacnus i:iirr Apollo." Class. /Y. p. 485. 



X Vcutcnul, Uiscuuis, p. I'J. 



dered 



