350 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



The acknowledged superiority of Linnaeus in the 

 knowledge of the matter of his science, induced 

 other persons to defer to him in -what concerned its 

 form; especially when his precepts were, for the 

 most part, recommended strongly both by con- 

 venience and elegance. The trivial names of the 

 Species Plantarum were generally received; and 

 though some of the details may have been altered, 

 the immense advantage of the scheme ensures its 

 permanence. 



Sect. 4. Linnceuss Artificial System. 



WE have already seen, that, from the time of Caesal- 

 pinus, botanists had been endeavouring to frame a 

 systematic arrangement of plants. All such ar- 

 rangements were necessarily both artificial and 

 natural : they were artificial, inasmuch as they 

 depended upon assumed principles, the number, 

 form, and position of certain parts, by the application 

 of which the whole vegetable kingdom was impera- 

 \ tively subdivided; they were natural, inasmuch as 

 the justification of this division was, that it brought 



I 



together those plants which were naturally related. 

 No system of arrangement, for instance, would have 

 been tolerated which, in a great proportion of cases, 

 separated into distant parts of the plan the different 

 species of the same genus. As far as the main body 

 of the genera, at least, all systems are natural. 



But beginning from this line, we may construct 

 our systems with two opposite purposes, according 



