PROGRESS TOWARDS A NATURAL SYSTEM. 371 



family, the Ranmulacece ; and he was wont to re- 

 late (as his son informs us) that it was this employ- 

 ment which first opened his eyes and rendered him 

 a botanist. In the memoir which he wrote, he 

 explained fully the relative importance of the cha- 

 racters of plants, and the subordination of some to 

 others; an essential consideration, which Adan- 

 son's scheme had failed to take account of. The 

 uncle died in 1777; and his nephew, in speaking of 

 him, compares his arrangement to the Ordines 

 Naturales of Linnaeus: "Both these authors," he 

 says, " have satisfied themselves with giving a cata- 

 logue of genera which approach each other in dif- 

 ferent points, without explaining the motives which 

 induced them to place one order before another, or 

 to arrange a genus under a certain order. These 

 two arrangements may be conceived as problems 

 which their authors have left for botanists to solve. 

 Linnaeus published his; that of M. de Jussieu is 

 only known by the manuscript catalogues of the 

 garden of the Trianon." 



It was not till the younger Jussieu had employed 

 himself for nineteen years upon botany, that he 

 published, in 1789, his Genera Plantarum ; and by 

 this time he had so entirely formed his scheme in 

 his head, that he began the impression without 

 having written the book, and the manuscript was 

 never more than two pages in advance of the 

 printers type. 



When this work appeared, it was not received 



BB2 



