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genei'a more, and natural orders very much." We have no doubt 

 that Dr. Ltndley commenced his botanical knowledge with " species," 

 and not with "natural orders;" and the very terms in which he com- 

 mences the chapter under consideration are at variance with this 

 subsequent advice. He bids the student " Take any common flower- 

 ing plant" and "examine every part of its structure." What is this 

 but studying the species ? If attention to orders were the right way of 

 commencing the study, why not say instead "Take a bundle of Com- 

 positae, and examine those characters in which they correspond," &c., &c. 

 But Dr. Lindley is not the author to be charged with advice- 

 giving on no plausible reasons ; although, in this instance, we cannot 

 admit the sufficiency of his reasons ; namely, " Because," he writes, 

 "in a vast science like Botany, containing perhaps 100,000 so-called 

 species, distributed through about 9,000 genera, collected under 

 scarcely more than 300 natural orders, the mind becomes bewildered 

 unless the smallest groups are first investigated. That is to say, 300 

 distinctions are more easily remembered than 9,000." But if Dr. 

 Lindley will take the trouble to throw the implied assertions con- 

 tained in the quoted passage, into the form of syllogisms, he will find 

 his reasoning insufficient to establish his conclusion. We meet it in 

 the more familiar manner, by asking whether a child requires to know 

 100,000 specific distinctions, or 9,000 generic distinctions, or 300 

 ordinal distinctions, before learning to know " buttercups and daisies," 

 as the song of Mary Howitt runs ? — or whether, the student of British 

 botany may not perfectly well know the species of British plants, that 

 is, quite as well as they are known by Dr. Lindley himself, without 

 learning the distinctions of all other species, genera, and orders ? The 

 truth is, real knowledge is always special — always specific. General 

 ideas are only vague ideas where the mind cannot give them special 

 illustrations, that is, cannot represent them by specific facts or objects. 

 The very names of the orders in botany accord herewith. They are 

 either taken from some single point of structure (Compositae, Cruciferae, 

 Leguminosae, &c.) or imply a comparison of all the included species 

 with some special type or example (Ranunculaceae, Liliaceae, &c.). 

 Dr. Lindley adds also, " Nor can the power of generalizing be so 

 readily acquired, as when the student habitually descends from gene- 

 rals to particulars." This, again, seems just the reverse of the fact. All 

 correct generalization is an ascent fi'om particulars to generals. It is 

 true, we may often advantageously reason downwards from generals to 

 particulars, after the general ideas have been acquired ; but their first 

 clear acquisition comes through particular and special knowledge. 

 Vol. II. , 5 Q 



