28 ANALYSIS OF THE POPPY. 



difficulty to the duiness of your own faculties ; it may arise from 

 want of clearness in an author's style, or the subject may be 

 connected with something which is to follow ; therefore, you 

 should patiently proceed, with the hope and expectation that 

 difficulties will gradually disappear. 



We shall not at present give any more examples of analyzing 

 plants. With even the little practice you have now had, you 

 can analyze flowers of any of the first thirteen classes ; but it 

 is necessary for you to know before proceeding farther, that the 

 two circumstances of the number and insertion of the stamens, 

 are not all that you are to talte into consideration, in tli 

 rahgement of the classes ; this was not sooner observed, that 

 your minds at first might not be confused with too many IK w 

 ideas. 



You are now prepared to comprehend the general features 

 of the Linnaean system* and to study the whole of the classes 

 and orders in a connected view. Before proceeding to this, it 

 seems necessary that you should have some knowledge of Greek 

 and Latin numerals. In our next lecture we shall commence, 

 by this necessary preparation, and shall then explain the char- 

 acters of the classes and orders, and illustrate the same by draw- 

 ings. Sensible objects are of great assistance to the mind, by 

 enabling it to form definite ideas of the meaning of words. In 

 abstract studies we cannot have such aid ; and in order to com- 

 prehend instructions given upon them, it is necessary that the 

 definitions of words should be well understood. Many persons 

 are satisfied with a general notion of the meaning of abstract 

 terms ; thus, they speak of " a sensation of pity," when they 

 mean an emotion. A more critical knowledge of the mdaning 

 of words, would enable them to perceive, that sensation is a 

 term appropriated to that state of the mind which immediately 

 follows the presence of an external object : it depends on the 

 connexion between the body and the mind. The mind, separa- 

 ted from all the organs of sense, could have no sensations ; but 

 it could have emotions, for they are feelings which the mind has, 

 independently of the senses. 



The, great advantage of pursuing studies which relate to ma- 

 terial objects, is, as we have before remarked, in being able to 

 illustrate principles, and define terms by a reference to those 

 objects themselves, or to delineations of them. 



Assistance which the mind derives from sensible object* Example of using 

 terms indefinitely. 



