372 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



with any enthusiasm; indeed, at that time, the 

 revolution of states absorbed the thoughts of all 

 Europe, and left men little leisure to attend to the 

 revolutions of science. The author himself was 

 drawn into the vortex of public affairs, and for 

 some years forgot his book. The method made its 

 way slowly and with difficulty : it was a long time 

 before it was comprehended and adopted in France, 

 although the botanists of that country had, a little 

 while before, been so eager in pursuit of a natural 

 system. In England and Germany, which had rea- 

 dily received the Linna3an method, its progress was 

 still more tardy. 



There is only one point, on which it appears 

 necessary further to dwell. A main and fundamen- 

 tal distinction in all natural systems, is that of the 

 Monocotyledonous and Dycotyledonous plants; that 

 is, plants which unfold themselves from an embryo 

 with two little leaves, or with one leaf only. This 

 distinction produces its effects in the systems which 

 are regulated by numbers ; for the flowers and fruit 

 of the monocotyledons are generally referrible to 

 some law in which the number three prevails; a 

 type which rarely occurs in dicotyledons, these 

 affecting most commonly an arrangement founded 

 on the number Jive. But it appears, when we 

 attempt to rise towards a natural method, that this 

 division according to the cotyledons is of a higher 

 order than the other divisions according to number; 

 and corresponds to a distinction in the general 



