368 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



of real value to the science. The method which he 

 followed is thus described by his eloquent and phi- 

 losophical eulogist 5 . 



Considering each organ by itself, he formed, by 

 pursuing its various modifications, a system of divi- 

 sion, in which he arranged all known species ac- 

 cording to that organ alone. Doing the same for 

 another organ, and another, and so for many, he 

 constructed a collection of systems of arrangement, 

 each artificial, each founded upon one assumed 

 organ. The species which come together in all 

 these systems are, of all, naturally the nearest to 

 each other; those which are separated in a few of 

 the systems, but contiguous in the greatest number, 

 are naturally near to each other, though less near 

 than the former; those which are separated in a 

 greater number, are further removed from each 

 other in nature ; and they are the more removed, 

 the fewer are the systems in which they are asso- 

 ciated. 



Thus, by this method, we obtain the means of 

 estimating precisely the degree of natural affinity 

 of all the species which our systems include, inde- 

 pendent of a physiological knowledge of the influ- 

 ence of the organs. But the method has, Cuvier 

 adds, the inconvenience of presupposing another 

 kind of knowledge, which, though it belongs only 

 to descriptive natural history, is no less difficult to 

 obtain ; the knowledge, namely, of all species, and 

 5 Cnv. Eloges, torn. i. p. 282. 



