XXXVI INTRODUCTION. 



make any solid progress towards the at- 

 tainment of the greater. These two ends 

 were a system of verification and a system 

 for purposes of interpretation. The ob- 

 stacle at the threshold was not yet entirely 

 removed. Notwithstanding the triumphant 

 jubilation over the Pinax, we still find 

 John Ray in the second half of the seven- 

 teenth century complaining of the difficulty 

 of ascertaining what plants belong to what 

 names 1 . The great botanists one after 

 another, Morison, Kay, Tournefort, were 

 observing Nature with close attention, in 

 order to detect the key to the secret of 

 natural affinities. In his Methodus Plan- 

 tarum Nova, 1682, Ray made great ad- 

 vances towards an outline of the Natural 

 system. Here was first proposed the dis- 

 tinction between Dicotyledons and Mono- 

 cotyledons. But the enquiry was too partial. 

 "While the general importance of the Fruc- 

 tification was acknowledged, the observation 

 was practically rivetted on the blossom and 

 the fruit, to the neglect of other parts and 



1 In the Preface to his Catalogus Plantarum Circa 

 Cantabrigiam nascentium, 1669. 



