IDEA OP NATURAL ARRANGEMENT. 333 



could be concisely expressed by a single word. Now we will 

 imagine these paragraphs, all printed on separate slips of paper, 

 with their appropriate titles, to be given to a Man of Science, 

 with a request that he would arrange them for publication. 

 His first idea might, perhaps, be, to place them in alphabetical 

 order, so as to form a kind of Dictionary ; this being the most 

 easy method of fulfilling his task, and also having the advantage, 

 when complete, of admitting very easy reference to any required 

 subject. But what idea would the reader of such a volume gain, 

 of the plan which the original Author had in his mind ? Or 

 what connected and harmonious scheme of knowledge could he 

 frame from them, unless he digested and arranged them in his 

 own mind, in the manner in which we shall suppose our Man of 

 Science to proceed to do ? He might commence in two ways ; 

 either by separating the whole into heaps, according to the sub- 

 jects to which they respectively refer, e. g. Mechanics, Chemistry, 

 Geology, Botany, Zoology, &c., and then arranging these 

 singly; or by endeavouring to join the separate paragraphs 

 together, according to their obvious connection. He will pro- 

 bably find a combination of these two methods the most advan- 

 tageous ; and by a careful examination of each single paragraph, 

 in its relations to the whole, he may at last succeed in producing 

 a series of connected Treatises, methodically arranged according 

 to their respective subjects, and regularly divided into chapters, 

 very nearly, or even exactly, upon the plan of the original 

 Author. Now the Alphabetical arrangement would bear a 

 close parallel with the Linnaean system of Botanical classifica- 

 tion; whilst the latter distribution, the one evidently most 

 calculated to convey to the learner a connected rather than a 

 desultory knowledge of the several objects of his pursuit, may 

 not unaptly represent the Natural System. 



487. It is by seeking for the latter only, that any of those 

 general principles can ever be attained, which give their chief 

 value to the facts of Science, and which lead us higher and 

 higher in the contemplation of that Almighty Power and Bound- 

 less Wisdom by which the Universe was framed ; for the Natural 

 System would be but a Table of Contents of the Vegetable 

 Kingdom, arranged on the plan of its Divine Author. In order 



