MODERN SCIENCE. 115 



their special character. The Animal Kingdom is indebted 

 to him for its complete classification according to the organs 

 of mastication and of digestion. His nomenclature of genera 

 has been introduced into every branch of science. His 

 definition of the inorganic and organic world is as famous for 

 its truth as for its terseness " stones grow, plants grow and 

 live, animals grow, live, and feel" The artificial system of 

 classification of plants is now superseded by the natural 

 system, but it retains much of its useful value by the facility 

 it affords of finding the name of a plant or an animal. 



1748 1836. Jussieu (Antoine Laurent), continuing the 

 original work of his uncle Bernard (1699 1767), created the 

 NATURAL SYSTEM, i.e. the method of natural classification 

 founded upon the subordination of characters, structure, 

 organisation, and relations the structure of the EMBRYO 

 serving as a chief basis. He divided the whole Vegetable 

 Kingdom into three great branches the acotyledon, the 

 monocotyledon, the dicotyledon which led to the constitu- 

 tion of the Families, or Natural Orders, as now accepted. 

 This system has been extended and improved by DE 

 CANDOLLE (17781841), Robert BROWN (17731858), 

 ENDLICHER (1804 49), LINDLEY (17991865), Sir 

 William HOOKER (1785 1865), the founder of the 

 Kew Garden Museum and Herbarium, and his son, Sir 

 Joseph, both of whom advanced the knowledge of the Flora 

 of the British Empire in a manner never attempted before. 

 Sir Joseph, besides his important contributions to the progress 

 of systematic botany (Genera Plantarum, Flora Indica), was 

 intimately associated with Darwin in the studies preliminary 

 to the publication of the " Origin of Species." 



!^4Q 1832. Goethe made valuable observations upon 

 the growth of plants ; pointed out their process of transfor- 

 mation, from primitive stems or leaves into all kinds of 

 varieties according to the work Nature has intended them to 

 do. Among other things, he showed that the stamens and 

 pistil are nothing but the flower-leaves metamorphosed into 

 a particular form so that they may serve to produce seeds. 

 Goethe's theory of METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS has proved a 

 /great discovery, and the study, once started (1790), led to the 



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