64 Artificial Systems and Terminology of Organs [Book i. 



not before arisen on botanical subjects ; this abundance of 

 literature, with the increased animation of its style, excited a 

 more permanent interest, which spread beyond the narrow 

 circle of the professional adepts. The systematists above- 

 named endeavoured to perfect the morphology and the termin- 

 ology of the parts of plants, and they found ready to their 

 hands in the works of their predecessors a considerable store 

 of observations and ideas, upon which they set themselves 

 to work. A very great number of descriptions of individual 

 plants had been accumulated since the time of Fuchs and 

 Bock, and the fact of natural affinity had been recognised in 

 the ' Pinax ' of Kaspar Bauhin as the foundation of a natural 

 system ; Cesalpino had pointed to the organs of fructification 

 as the most important for such a system, and Jung had 

 supplied the first steps to a comparative morphology in place 

 of a mere explanation of names. The botanists of the last 

 thirty years of the 17 th century could not fail to perceive that 

 the series of affinities as arranged by de l'Obel and Bauhin 

 could not be defined by predetermined marks in the way 

 pursued by Cesalpino, nor fashioned in this way into a well- 

 articulated system. Nevertheless they held fast in principle to 

 Cesalpino's mode of proceeding, though they endeavoured to 

 amend it by obtaining their grounds of division, not as he had 

 done, chiefly from the organisation of the seed and fruit, but 

 from other parts of the flower ; variations in the corolla, the 

 calyx, and the general habit were employed to found systems, 

 which were intended to exhibit natural affinities. And while 

 the true means were thus missed, the end itself was not clearly 

 and decidedly adhered to; a system was desired for the pur- 

 pose of facilitating the acquisition of a knowledge of the 

 greatest possible number of individual forms ; the weight of 

 the burden caused by the foolish demand that every botanist 

 should know all described plants, was continually increasing, 

 and naturally led to seeking some alleviation in systematic 

 arrangement. Excessive devotion to the describing of plants 



