84 REVIEW. [^March, 



nology of the author, the natural system is founded on these two 

 principles, normal structure and perfect development. In this 

 chapter is discussed at great length the doctrine of successive and 

 collateral metamorphosis, of affinities, analogies, etc. etc. 



The fifth chapter is on the difference between the natural and 

 the artificial systems {j,nter systemata artificialia et naturale 

 sy sterna quidnam intersit). All botanists know what objects arti- 

 ficial systems are devised to subserve : we need not repeat what 

 is already well known, but as few, at present, know Agardh's 

 views on the objects of a natural system, they are here stated in 

 his own words : " Natural i autem systemati id propositum esse 

 ut ita in majores ordine compouerentur organismi, ut ab ipsa 

 natura institutum esset/' Hence he infers that there is one 

 method of constructing a natural, and another way of forming 

 an artificial system. 



It needs no ghost to tell us this. But our author tells us 

 further, that in an artificial system we look for distinctions, 

 in a natural, for similarities [similitudines) and affinities. This 

 throws some light on an obscure subject. Furthermore, an 

 artificial method is formed on analysis, the natural on synthesis. 

 In the former, individual things (objects) are to be distinguished, 

 or in other words, there is a descent from the more comprehen- 

 sive and general to the special or less general. In the natural 

 system, on the contrary, the operation proceeds upward from the 

 more special to the more general and universal. There are many 

 other distinctions noticed by the author, quas nunc pr(BScribere 

 longum est. 



The next Chapter has the following heading : "Naturale sys- 

 tema quoniodo a botanicis inventum fuerit et expositum.^' 



In the infancy of the science, as the Doctor states, in defining 

 species, genera, and orders, differences chiefly were noted; and thus 

 the groups in the first systems devised were of necessity artificial. 

 Still, as the divisions were usually founded on the flowers and 

 fruit, it often liappened that Natural Orders were accidentally 

 formed. In the Linnsean system even, where the principal cha- 

 racters are derived from the parts of the flower, there are many 

 Orders which even in the present day are admitted to be natural. 

 This eminent man, who knew that there were natural groups 

 larger than genera, and who also maintained that the formation 

 of these was the ultimate and the grandest object of botanical 



