337 



how to discover in every region the medicines thai are best adapted 

 for the maladies that prevail in it;" &c. Now Dr. Lindley is not 

 here speaking of any particular system, but of the science of botany 

 generally, independently of systems and methods. 



Then, at p. 37, he states that " Dr. Lindley adopts the series of 

 classification laid down by DeCandolle, because he thinks it ' that 

 which is least removed from a natural sequence, and partly because 

 it is convenient and easy for study. But let no one imagine (he says) 

 that I attach the least importance to it.' " Now it happens that these 

 are not Dr. Lindley's words at all ; they occur in a passage quoted by 

 him from DeCandolle's ' Theori Elementaire de la Botanique ;'. and 

 immediately follow that author's brief exposition of his series of orders, 

 which series he says he has adopted for the reasons given in the 

 above quotation, but, he adds, " let no one imagine that I attach the 

 least importance to it. The true science of general Natural History 

 consists in the study of the symmetry peculiar to each family, and of 

 the relation which these families bear to each other. All the rest is 

 merely a scaffolding, better or worse suited to accomplish that end." 

 —P. 206, 1st ed. 



Whether Lindley's or DeCandolle's, our author ought in fairness 

 and justice to have given the latter part of the above quotation, since 

 that contains the pith of the matter; but it did not answer his pur- 

 pose to do so. 



At p. 85 is the following passage : — 



" What appears to me as the great en'or in the system of Jussieu, 

 was his taking the seed as the basis of his classification ; it formed 

 one of sand, on which nothing durable can ever rest ; and hence the 

 perpetual tinkering, patching, taking away, adding to, or altering in 

 some way or another his system by every one who undertakes to ex- 

 plain it by writing. If part be Jussieu's, the next is of the author's 

 [what author's ?] own concocting; but, at the same lime, the single, 

 double, or no lobe of the seeds, form the great divisions on which the 

 fabric is to rest." 



In this passage we have a palpable suppressio veri — in it the truth 

 is stated, but not the whole truth. It is, for example, quite true that 

 in the system of Jussieu " the single, double, or no lobe of the seeds 

 [more correctly, of the embryo] form the gi-eat divisions on which the 

 fabric is to rest ;" but it is not true that this is the only character upon 

 which it is founded, nor is it true that this basis is " one of sand, on 

 which nothing durable can ever rest:" on the contrary, it is perhaps 

 the most stable character that could have been selected as the founda- 

 VOL. IV. 2 X 



