1858.] REVIEW. '7i 



who by the rack stretched the bodies too short to fit his bed, 

 and cut off part of those whose persons were longer than his 

 couch ? 



The second Chapter is entitled " Quid systemaii naturali pro- 

 jiositum sit/' and its prefixed motto is in Swedish, a quotation 

 from one of the author's works. It comprehends Jussieu's defi- 

 nition of a system, extracted from the article Taxonomy, given 

 in {Diet. Univer. d'Hist. Natur.) his own words, only translated. 

 Our author remarks that it is easily seen {facile appm-et) that 

 the object of devising this is merely that forms may be distin- 

 guished and more easily defined ; and continues to state " that 

 the sexual system of Linnaeus provides for all this." 



He then insists on the fact " that a natural system has a dif- 

 ferent object, as we have endeavoured to prove, viz. ' Necesse 

 esse ut unuraquemque Organismum ad certum et institutum 

 typum formari censeamus, et certam quandam tanquam ideam 

 ejus imagine expressam conspiciamus.'"^ As the plant which 

 springs up this year is produced by the same life which produced 

 this form thousands of years ago. That it depends on certain 

 laAvs, which are continually in operation, that similar forms are 

 constantly produced. And because certain plants invariably 

 agree in structure, figure, and qualities, it proves that they are 

 under the influence of laws common to them, which are not 

 common to other forms, etc., of vegetation ; — that the orders of 

 plants are affected by these laws more or less, according to the 

 extent of the family." Hence he concludes that every plant has 

 its own peculiar place in the natural system, and that a natural 

 system exists in order that every plant may occupy that place 

 given to it by Nature. Whether the orders of such a system 

 can be certainly defined or limited or distinguished from each 

 other or not, is not the object proposed by a natural system, 

 etc. etc. 



" But we have seen," he continues, " that the investigators of 

 nature, who deny that the larger groups are constituted by Na- 

 ture, which creates only species, as some of them maintain, or 

 species and genera, as others affirm, have no other idea of a 

 natural svstem than as a means of determining the names of 



* " Eveiy organism is formed in tlie likeness of a certain type, and is capable 

 by its form of being the expression of a certain definite notion (idea)." 



