332 IDEA OF NATURAL ARRANGEMENT. 



of the flower of Endogens, we find most of this group included 

 in the classes Triandria, Hexandria, and Enneandria ; whilst 

 the prevalence of the numbers four and five among Exogens, 

 causes the classes Tetrandria and Pentandria, Octandria and De- 

 candria, with Icosandria and Polyandria, to contain a very large 

 proportion of that division. But the Linnaean system often 

 brings together Exogens and Endogens into close contact ; be- 

 sides breaking up the natural alliances of each, so as to scatter 

 widely apart the members of groups nearly united. Examples 

 of this will be hereafter given. 



486. The Natural System, on the other hand, aims to present 

 an harmonious and consistent view of the Vegetable Kingdom, 

 by associating into Orders those genera which agree in the most 

 numerous and important characters, and which differ from others 

 in the same. A table of the characters of these Orders would 

 therefore resemble the Table of Contents of a well-arranged 

 book ; giving at one glance to a person at all acquainted with 

 the subject, an idea of the mode in which it is treated by the 

 author, and of the relations which the several divisions of it had 

 in his mind ; and enabling a person who is entering upon the 

 study of it, to do so with the knowledge that he is not gleaning 

 at random, as if he were reading through a Dictionary, but that 

 every acquisition he makes of an individual part is something 

 toward an acquaintance with the plan of the whole. One more 

 illustration may set this matter in a still clearer light. The 

 reader may be requested to consider this series of Treatises as 

 completed according to the original plan ; and as consisting of a 

 number of Volumes, each devoted to some particular Science, 

 but all having a certain degree of connexion with each other. 

 Each Volume consists of a series of Chapters, in which the sub- 

 divisions of these Sciences are respectively treated of, and among 

 which there is a still closer degree of connexion. Every chapter, 

 again, is made up of a number of paragraphs, each intended to 

 contain one or more important facts, the knowledge of which is 

 in itself useful, but which can only be fully understood when 

 read continuously with the preceding and following paragraphs. 

 We shall further suppose that the subject of every paragraph 



