Mr. Bichends Paper on Systems a?id Methods. 211 



Your reflections on the French school are, no doubt, in- 

 tended, by their severity, to give us all due warning. I much 

 question, however, whether the present perverse generation 

 will not continue with the French to observe and arrange 

 facts, dividing and subdividing them, rather than take with 

 you a free and lofty range by issuing forth " first principles 

 of arrangement" founded on abstract reasoning. 



Although I am, as you are aware, no Botanist, I am glad 

 to acquire any information on plants, and I confess your as- 

 sertion, that Parnassia and Linncca are as distinct as any of 

 the classes of vegetables, is quite new to me. Still more am I 

 interested by your observations, that " in many instances a 

 class is equivalent to an order or genus," and that " the great 

 division of Cotyledonous plants may only be equivalent to the 

 Order of Grasses." I do riot now wonder that in another part 

 of your paper you should place Natural History in diame- 

 trical opposition to Mathematics, for I recollect that Euclid 

 begins with the fundamental axiom, that " the whole must be 

 greater than its part." 



You are obliging enough to consent to the adoption of the 

 terms species and genus in Natural History, but to these alone. 

 All other terms for groupes are swea -sjTsjsosvra, " fleeting in- 

 struments of thought." But how the term genus, or even 

 species, is not equall}' objectionable, how it is not equally a 

 fleeting instrument of thought, as well as the terms Class, 

 Order, Family, &c., I cannot well discover. In the place of 

 these last terms you would, in the natural method, employ 

 the words Groupe, Section, and Division ; but I have yet to 

 learn the ground of preference. Groupe is a general word 

 for all masses of individuals, of whatever degree ; and as to the 

 words Section and Division, it surely requires explanation how 

 they can express " assemblages of approximations" better 

 tlian the terms Tribes and Families. 



I have now gone through your Paper, of which, as I said 

 at the begiiming of my review, the object aimed at may, for 

 all that I know, coincide with my own o]iinions. It is indeed 

 the peculiar advantage of the style of argument you have 

 chosen to adoj^t, that the purjiort and aim of your remarks 

 remain envelojied in secure mystery, while the only visible 

 points of your line of attack arc detached and insulated pro- 

 positions. Many of these detached propositions I am far 

 from fighting with ; many indeed are truisms ; while manj', 

 such as tliosu discussed above, will recjuirc some time, I sus- 

 pect, before they can possibly triumph. But whether assent- 

 ed to or denied, I conlL'ss I tlo not perceive the use of any 

 of iheni, and the novelty of but very few. Believe nie, 1 «lo 



2 E 2 not 



