JO2 Artificial Systems and Terminology of [BOOK i. 



a certain feeling for natural affinity is shown in the establish- 

 ment of his seven families, Fungi, Algae, Mosses, Ferns, 

 Grasses, Palms, and Plants properly so-called. Moreover in 

 paragraph 163 of the * Philosophia Botanica,' he carries out 

 the division of the whole vegetable kingdom into Acotyledons, 

 Monocotyledons, and Polycotyledons with their subdivisions 

 very admirably ; and thus we see him continually impelled 

 towards a natural arrangement, but never bestowing upon it 

 the necessary labour and thought. 



And so two different conceptions of a system of plants 

 continued to subsist side by side with each other in the mind 

 of Linnaeus ; one more superficial, and adapted for practical 

 use, expressed in his artificial sexual system, and one more 

 profound and scientifically valuable, embodied in his fragment 

 and in the natural groups above-mentioned. 



The same may be said also of Linnaeus' morphological 

 views ; here, too, a more superficial pursued its way along 

 with a more profound conception. He formed his terminology 

 of the parts of plants for practical use in describing them, 

 and convenient as it is, it seems nevertheless shallow or 

 superficial, because its foundations are not more deeply laid 

 in the comparative study of forms. But we discover from 

 very various passages in his writings that he felt the need of 

 a more profound conception of plant-form, and what he was 

 able to say on the subject he put together under the head 

 of ' metamorphosis plantarum.' His doctrine of metamor- 

 phosis is entirely based on the views of Cesalpino, with 

 which we have already become acquainted, though he did 

 not adopt them in their original form, but endeavoured to 

 develop them in true Cesalpinian fashion ; for on the one 

 hand he derived leaves and parts of flowers from the tissues 

 of the stem, and on the other conceived of the parts of the 

 flower as only altered leaves. This doctrine of metamorphosis 

 appears in somewhat confused form in the last page of his 

 ' Philosophia Botanica.' There he says that the whole of the 



