IS 



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made, and artificial classifications have been formed, many of 

 which have been laid aside as soon as formed, giving place to 

 others equally visionary and short lived. But it should be re- 

 membered that even artificial systems when founded on real re- 

 semblances and relations, like those of Linnaeus, have had their 

 advantages, and have often brought to light new relations and 

 new facts, which were unknown before ; and thus having an- 

 swered their purposes they have passed away, leaving, perhaps, 

 little to be remembered of ihem in after times, except the praise- 

 worthy exertions of their immortal authors. 



It is not necessary here to enter upon a consideration of the 

 various attempts at systematizing. There has always been a 

 tendency in philosophic minds to generalize the laws of nature, 

 and to render more intelligible those abstruse principles which 

 have proved uninteresting to the ordinary student. But all the 

 systems which have been attempted, seem to be more or less local 

 or artificial, extending, in general, only to a few branches of nat- 

 ural science ; or if, as in some few instances, a wider range has 

 been taken, the obscurity in which they have been involved, 

 seems to increase in proportion to the extent of survey. 



Among those whose minds have been employed on this sub- 

 ject, stand conspicuous, the names of Linnaeus, Lister, Willough- 

 by, Ray, Lamark, Latreille and Cuvier. The labors of these 

 great naturalists were confined almost exclusively to a few branch- 

 es of natural science included in the animal and vegetable king- 

 doms, yet they shed additional light over the whole field of na- 

 ture, while, perhaps, neither of them thought his classification 

 would remain long unchanged. Even Linnaeus, whose writings 

 have been more highly approved, and circulated farther than 

 those of any other naturalist, left us nothing more than an artifi- 

 cial classification, and no one ever felt more the deficiency of his 

 system than himself; for, while he acknowledges this, he invites 

 Philosophers engaged in botany, every where, to make common 

 interest with him in seeking for a natural system, by which he 

 undoubtedly meant a system founded upon fixed laws, and re- 

 maining unchangeable in all its arrangements. 



