118 ' CLASSIFICATION. 



gether ; but we caraiot thus form organized bodies, for to these belongs a living 

 principle, which it is not in the power of man to bestow. It is said that Kousseau, 

 skeptical in science as in religion, declared he would not believe in the correct- 

 ness of the analysis of vegetable or animal substances, until he should see a young 

 animal, or a thrifty plant, spring into existence from the retort of the chemist. 

 But the power to create the Almighty has not delegated to man ; neither is it to 

 be supposed that any future discoveries in science will ever confer it upon him. 

 To study the compound nature of substances, to classify, arrange, and by various 

 combinations to beautify the world of matter, to cultivate the faculties of mind, 

 until, stronger and brighter, the mental vision sees facts and principles before 

 invisible, — these are the high privileges bestowed on man ; — but to add one new 

 particle to matter, or one new faculty to the mind, is beyond the power of the ivhole 

 huvian race. 



PART III. 



CLASSIFICATION. 



LECTUKEXXII. 



METHOD OF TOUKNEFOET. SYSTEM OF LINN^US. NATURAL ISIETH- 



ODS. METHOD OF JUSSIEU. COMPAEISON BETWEEN THE CLASSIFI- 

 CATIONS OF TOURNEFORT, LINN^US, AND JUSSIEU. 



145. Let us now imagine the whole vegetable kingdom, comprising innumerable 

 milhons of individual plants, to be spread out before a Botanist. Could he, in the 

 course of the longest life, number each blade of grass, each little moss, each shrub, 

 or even each tree ? If he could not even count them, much less could he give to 

 each one a separate naine and description. But he does not need to name them 

 separately, for nature has arranged them into sorts, or kinds. If a child were sent 

 into the fields to gather flowers of a similar kind, he would need no book to direct 

 him to put into one parcel all the red clover blossoms, and into another the white 

 clover ; while the dandelions would form another group. These all constitute dif- 

 ferent species. Nature would also teach the child that the red and white clover, 

 although differing from each other in some particulars, yet bear a strong resem- 

 blance. By placing these kinds together we form a genus, and to tliis genus we refer 

 all the different kinds or species of clover. 



146. The whole number oi species of plants which have been 

 named and described, including many which have been recent- 

 ly discovered in New Holland and about the Cape of Good 

 Hope, is said to be more than 100,000. If sj^ecies of plants 

 were described without any regular order we could derive 

 neither pleasure nor advantage fi-om the study of practical bot- 

 any. AVhen we wished to find the name of a plant we should 



145. Nature arrangcB plants into kinds or sorts — Examples. — 146. Number of speeies of plants — Ne- 

 cessity of order in flescriptioru 



