344 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



garment which does not fit us, if we attempt to 

 work in it we tear it in pieces. 



The formation of a good descriptive language is, 

 in fact, an inductive process of the same kind as 

 those which we have already noticed in the progress 

 of natural history. It requires the discovery of fixed 

 characters, which discovery is to be marked and 

 fixed, like other inductive steps, by appropriate 

 technical terms. The characters must be so far 

 fixed, that the things which they connect must have 

 a more permanent and real association than the 

 things which they leave unconnected. If one bunch 

 of grapes were really a racemus, and another a 

 thyrsus, according to the definition of these terms, 

 this part of the Linnsean language would lose its 

 value; because it would no longer enable us to 

 assert a general proposition with respect to one 

 kind of plants. 



Sect. 3. Linncean Reform of Botanical Nomen- 

 clature. 



IN the ancient writers each recognized kind of plants 

 had a distinct name. The establishment of Genera 

 led to the practice of designating Species by the name 

 of the genus, with the addition of a " phrase " to 

 distinguish the species. These phrases, (expressed in 

 Latin in the ablative case,) were such as not only to 

 mark, but to describe the species, and were intended 

 to contain such features of the plant as were sufii- 



