530 REVIEWS. \Mo,y, 



scientific discoveries^ not from the first man, the original parent 

 of the human race, but from his contemporaries and predeces- 

 sors, the sages of ancient Greece ? 



It has been said, not in banter, but in sober seriousness, that 

 the binary and ternary systems of classification, or the Linnsean 

 system of Cryptogamous and Phanerogamous plants, and also 

 the threefold classification, the more recent inventions of Jussieu, 

 Decandolle, Endlicher, Fries, etc., are to be found in the first 

 chapter of the first book of Moses, called Genesis. And hence 

 the vulgus profanum, the illiterate and the unphilosophic, are 

 emboldened to surmise, and proh pudor, " shame befall them,^' 

 are not afraid to insinuate that there has been no great discovery 

 after all. 



Several years ago. Dr. Drummond published a spicy little 

 book on natural systems of botany, containing many caustic re- 

 mai-ks on classification, terminology, and especially on morpho- 

 logy, a work which several of our friends and correspondents 

 have read and enjoyed. If we understand the gist of the Doc- 

 tor's treatise, he does not give the morphologists much credit 

 for their discoveries and inventions. He shows with considerable 

 force and acuteness, certainly with much jocularity, mingled 

 with sarcastic poignancy, that these so-called systems and dis- 

 coveries are inconsistent and vague, or that their expositors have 

 not been happy in the selection of the terms whereby they ex- 

 press the new learning. 



That there is some truth in what Dr. Drummond advanced, 

 may be inferred from the mutability of the new phraseology. It 

 is possible that some of the newly invented words were causes 

 of grief to their original inventors. The terms morphosis, mor- 

 phology, metamorphosis are not exactly synonymous; they mean 

 respectively /orma^iow (the act of forming), the law or doctrine 

 of form (figure, shape), change of form. Do any of these words 

 express exactly what botanists mean to express when they speak 

 or write about the formative and structural energies of vegeta- 

 tion ? Unhappily, the scientific investigators despise the niceties 

 of language. They rarely condescend to state the precise im- 

 port or sense in which they understand and apply these terms. 

 Hence the mystification of science, and the ridicule thrown on 

 the logic of its professors. 



It may be asserted that Nature is no bungler ; she does not 



