'1^ On Artificial and Natural Arrangements of Plants. 



dered it as the highest department of the science, there can be 

 no difficulty in acceding to them ; but if they be intended to 

 show that he was of opinion that any arrangement of plants 

 on a natural system was to be preferred to, and might super- 

 sede the use of, his own artificial arrangement, (and if this 

 was not the object in view, the introduction of the concessions 

 ofLinntEUS is of no avail,) it may justly be observed that these 

 authors have either mistaken or not fairly represented the 

 meaning of Linnaeus. — That natural affinities are to be studied, 

 and that this department of the science cannot be too diligently 

 cultivated, was his decided conviction. He has even frequently 

 contemplated the possibility of an arrangement which should 

 include in their natural orders the whole vegetable kingdom ; 

 but in alluding to such an event, it was always as a mere pos- 

 sibility, of the completion of which he had scarcely a distant 

 hope: still less would he have been inclined to admit that 

 any such arrangement, even if it could be formed, could su- 

 persede that which he had with so much assiduity demon- 

 strated, and to which he invariably adhered to the close of his 

 life. To collect together detached sentiments from his wri- 

 tings for the purpose of proving that he preferred a natural 

 method to his own, as a general arrangement, is to pervert his 

 opinions, to render him the adversary of his own labours, and the 

 suicide of his own fame. To the firm and inflexible convic- 

 tion of the practical superiority of his own method, all the 

 passages cited by these writers are strictly reconcileable; but 

 if any doubt remained on this subject, it would readily be dis- 

 sipated by a reference to his works. Even in the brief intro- 

 duction to his own fragments ot natural oiders, he has placed 

 it in so clear and perspicuous a light, that it is impossible to 

 mistake it. " Natiu'al orders," says he, " cannot constitute a 

 method without a key. In distinguishing plants, the artificial 

 method is alone of any avail ; a natural method being scarcely, 

 or rather not at all, possible. Natural orders a)e useful in 

 acquainting us with the nature of plants, but an artificial me- 

 thod is requisite to their discrimination*." And to this he has 

 added, in language that must for ever remove all ambiguity 

 on this head, " Tiiose persons who, instead of a natural me- 

 thod, have arranged plants in fragments of such a method, 

 and reject an artificial one, seem to me to resemble those who, 

 having a convenient and well roofed house, overturn it, in 



* " Ordines naturales non constitimnt metliodiim absque clave. 



" MethoJui artiiicialis itaque sola valet in diagnosi, ciiiii clavis M. na- 

 turalis vix ac lie vix possibilis sit. 



" Ordines naturales valcut dc natura ijlaiitarum — Artificialcs in diagnosi 

 plantarum." 



order 



