266 ON THE NATURAL SYSTEM 



Emily. We examined yesterday the system of classifi- 

 cation founded upon a single organ : well, if I had to 

 class the vegetable kingdom, and was well acquainted 

 with the structure of plants, I should make as many dif- 

 ferent arrangements as there are different organs. The 

 first, for instance, would be made after the roots, the next 

 after the stems, the following after the leaves, another re- 

 lating to their position, another according to the number 

 of the organs, and so on. I should thus form, perhaps, a 

 hundred different systems. Now, I suppose that the 

 plants which were placed together in ninety-nine of these 

 systems would bear the strongest possible resemblance to 

 each other ; in ninety-eight, a little less so : in a word, 

 that the resemblance between plants could be ascertained 

 by the number of systems common to each. 



Mrs. B. Your idea is very ingenious, my dear Emily ; 

 and, though I do not agree with you in opinion, you may 

 boast of having suggested the same theory as a ver-y dis- 

 tinguished French botanist, M. Adamson. He called it, 

 "Method of General Comparison," and bestowed much 

 labor upon it; but, as he lived so long ago as the year 

 1760, he was far from being acquainted with all the differ- 

 ent characters of plants, which rendered his system very 

 incomplete. Even in our time, though great progress 

 has been made in botany, new characters and properties 

 are frequently discovered in plants ; consequently, a clas- 

 sification of this description would still be incomplete. 



Emily. I own that objection did not occur to me, be- 

 cause I thought that the degree of precision in any mode 

 of classification depended upon the state of the science 

 at the time it was made. 



Mrs. B. There is another objection, of still greater 

 weight. According to your system, you count the num- 

 ber of organs that resemble each other in different plants, 

 but you make no estimate of the relative importance of 

 each ; yet you must consider that all the organs are far 

 from being of equal importance. Plants which resemble 

 each other in a few of their principal organs, have more 



1434. How does Emily propose to give plants a Natural classifica- 

 tion'? 1435. What does she suppose in relation to such classification, 

 when made! 1436. What French chemist proposed the same theory! 

 1437. How would it be objectionable from the new characters and prop- 

 erties of plants with which we are becoming acquaintedl 1438.- 

 What other objection of still greater weight is there 1 ? 



