(Microgonid. p. 135) are so important that a continuance of his 

 investigation is to be hoped for ; and the more so that the proper 

 function of the organ is as yet unknown. (Minks Microgonid. 

 pp. 133-139. Syml). Lich. -My c., passim.) 



The first step in man's apprehension of the ORDER in nat- 

 ure that part of nature which is pre-eminently less natural 

 than ideal, and responds to the ideal in himself is his apprehen- 

 sion of Habit. This brings him to an indefinite conception of 

 Groups that individual animals or vegetables are associable, 

 first, as of the same sort ; and secondly that these sorts are as- 

 sociable as of the same kind to some imperfect conception then 

 of Species, and Genus. And systematic scientific study begins 

 with the attempt to give definiteness to these vague notions, 

 and elevate them to knowledge. In its progress higher groups 

 are caught sight of; and species come to be arranged not only 

 in genera, but the genera in Families and Tribes. It is the 

 NATURAL METHOD which is unfolding itself ; rich in an unlim- 

 ited variety of processes, and a detail that we cannot grasp. 

 But life is short ; and all the delights of study prove unsatisfac- 

 tory to some larger minds unless they reach forward to an uni- 

 versal view, and a System of nature ; not at all to be got at, as 

 Eschweiler well said, in nature. Art must supervene ; and the 

 natural become artificial, in the regulative intelligence of Man. 

 And it being to be taken for granted that all systematists in- 

 tend, whatever the determining principle of their arrangements, 

 to exhibit fairly the whole of the structure of which their prin- 

 ciple makes but a part, it is evident that the question what the 

 principle be whether, in the Class before us, 1 , the thallus, or 

 2, the thallus and all other organs taken together, or 3, the apo- 

 thecium, or highest of organs is of less practical importance, 

 than how the work be carried through, and serve us in use. 



Of the three principles of arrangement just reckoned, the 

 first in the order of thought, the abstract lichen (so to say) not 

 known as yet in the particulars that compose it is naturally 

 first also in the order of time, the thallus. This first attracts 



