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the principles of philosophical classification, but almost impracticable 

 in practice ; — I have thrown together a few notes on this important 

 topic, in the hope that some botanist will either demonstrate the fal- 

 lacy of my opinions, or be led to reflect on the incompetence of the 

 "natural" oy fashionable system to perform all that it promises. With 

 this view the insertion of the following remarks in your valuable jour- 

 nal will oblige, Mr. Editor, 



Yours respectfully, 



Thos. Edmonston, jun. 

 To the Editor of ' The Phytologist.' 



It has of late years become a favorite subject with naturalists, and 

 especially with botanists, to cry down as unphilosophical and as un- 

 adapted for the extended knowledge and comparatively mature obser- 

 vations of the age, any system of classification which does not include 

 in the definitions of its divisions a great mass of characters, but which 

 assorts the objects of which it treats in groups distinguished from each 

 other by one, or at least by few characteristics. This seems to be the 

 simple difference between the two kinds of classification, the " natu- 

 ral " and the " artificial." 



The object of the present remarks is not so much to enter into the 

 more general principles of classification, as to endeavour to demon- 

 strate and illustrate the proposition, — That a simple arlificial scheme 

 is absolutely necessary as an easy introduction to the study of the sci- 

 ence, by which a sufficient knowledge of species may be gained to ena- 

 ble the student to turn to the more complicated generalizations of the 

 other system. 



With this view it will tend to give my remarks more precision and 

 individuality, if I take the two best systems constructed according to 

 the principles of the two methods, namely, the Linnaean, almost uni- 

 versally allowed to be the best artificial system, and the modification 

 of Decandolle's system adopted by Professor Lindley in his ' Synop- 

 sis,' which appears to be the best and most consistent of the natural 

 methods, and the one in which its principles are seen to the greatest 

 advantage, — as representatives of the respective modes of classifica- 

 tion favoured by their authors. 



It is a well-known fact, and one often quoted by the advocates of a 

 natural scheme, that Linnaeus never intended his sexual system to su- 

 persede a natural one, provided that should ever be discovered. But 

 as in the state of the science at the time he lived, and the compara- 

 tively limited knowledge of vegetable structure he possessed, it was 



