1011 



Mr. Edmonston has surely mistaken my meaning when he puts in 

 my mouth the statement that "all our groupings have actually an ex- 

 istence in the scheme of Nature." 1 have merely affirmed that the 

 capability of being thrown into such groups, is a powerful argument 

 for the existence of a plan or scheme in the Divine Mind anterior to 

 the creation of natural objects, and that our groups are nothing more 

 than an attempt to approximate to the Divine plan or order, " Order 

 is Heaven's first law," says Pope, in the double character of philoso- 

 pher and poet. 



The groups in all systems are metaphysical ; they are creations of 

 the mind of man, but they are natural in proportion as they place in 

 immediate proximity those objects that most closely resemble each 

 other, or, in other words, have the strongest affinity. But from what 

 I have said above, it is impossible that these groups should have a 

 positive existence in external nature; we can have no personification 

 of any one group ; classes, orders, genera, species, are entirely men- 

 tal. If indeed they are mental, if no personification of them can be 

 shown (and such cannot), then are they entirely metaphysical, and 

 being metaphysical, why taunt me with being "ultra-metaphysical," 

 when the subject-matter of our discourse comes within the domain of 

 that science, and of that alone ? 



From what has been said above, I would undoubtedly answer Mr. 

 Edmonston, that inasmuch as the groups of both systems are crea- 

 tions of man's mind, they are both artificial, but that, as throwing to- 

 gether those plants that bear the greatest resemblance to each other, 

 the natural system approximates most nearly to the plan which I have 

 supposed to exist in the Divine Mind. 



Mr. Edmonston's analysis of Ranunculacew does much more than 

 he intended, for it totally destroys the characters of the order. He 

 has rejected all the characters except those derived from the seed, 

 and J complete the work of destruction, by stating that there are nu- 

 merous orders that possess solid albumen and seeds without arillus, 

 in common with Ranunculaceae. I am afraid that even the veriest 

 sticklers for the old system will not go so far as Mr. Edmonston, and 

 pronounce Ranunculaceae a nonentity ! But I object to Mr. E.'s plan 

 of examining the characters of natural orders, in toto. I maintain 

 that the whole of the characters must be retained, and that the excep- 

 tions must not be made the rule. There are a very few genera in 

 which exceptions to those characters occur, and these, approximating 

 to other orders in their characters, form those oscillatory groups that 



