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not only impossible he could frame such a system, but also impossi- 

 ble, had it been done, that the state of botanical knowledge would 

 have allowed of its practical utility ; — the object of Linnaeus in pi'o- 

 pounding his artificial system was to furnish botanists with a method 

 of classification, simple and easily acquired, and which would be the 

 great help to gaining the knowledge necessary for constructing and 

 using a natural system : and what was then necessary for the state of 

 botanical knowledge generally^ is, I contend, still indispensible to 

 students individually. 



To establish this position, it will be well to look first at a few of the 

 general principles and uses of classification as applied to the two 

 rival systems, and then glance at the advantages and imperfections 

 of both- 



In the first place, then, as Nature creates only species, and as 

 classes, orders, sections, genera, or by whatever names other group- 

 ings than specific identity are termed, are merely contrivances for the 

 greater facility of distinguishing and knowing species, I am at a loss 

 to conceive the applicability of the term " natural," as applied to the 

 systems of Jussieu, Decandolle, Lindley, &c. ; the appropriation of 

 the term must be either without meaning, or it must proceed upon 

 two hypotheses, both of which, I apprehend, it will be found some- 

 what difiicult to establish, namely, that plants have been created upon 

 a certain plan, and thrown by Nature into classes, orders, genera and 

 species; and secondly, that this scheme of Nature is the same as some 

 one or other of the natural systems : though these hypotheses may 

 doubtless find supporters, I conceive it would be a waste of time to 

 dispute them. 



Let us hear Dr. Lindley on the affinities of plants. In his very able 

 * Key to Botany' (p. 40), he says, — " What we call the characters of 

 plants are merely the signs by which we judge of affinity, and all the 

 groups into which plants are thrown are in one sense artificial, inas- 

 much as Nature recognises no such groups.''' I What then is a natu- 

 ral system ? If no system exists in nature, whence this misnomer ? 

 That no such system exists, is abundantly evident, and by Dr. Lind- 

 ley's own showing too, yet botanists speak of it as a settled thing ; 

 and, strange to say, every time such a system is propounded, it is always 

 perfect, — no link is wanting to bind its parts into a harmonious whole, 

 till some new facts or plants are discovered that derange the fair edi- 

 fice, which has now to be reconstructed only again to be destroyed. 

 The first thing an unassisted student of Botany does, after gaining a 

 knowledge of the rudiments of the science, such as the terminology &c.. 



