CLASSIFICATION OF JUSSIEU. 173 



application to all others and particularly to the system 

 very improperly termed the Natural System, which I 

 shall now notice. 



CLASSIFICATION OF JUSSIEU, ALLEGED TO BE THE 

 NATURAL SYSTEM. 



IT being obvious that the Linnaean system groups 

 together plants which are comparatively incongruous, 

 though they agree in the number of their stamens 

 and pistils, it was thought desirable to fix upon some 

 principle, which would allow of plants more alike in 

 all respects, being associated in the same classes and 

 orders. Viewing the seed then as a more important 

 organ than the stamens and pistils, Jussieu devised a 

 classification which takes its leading divisions from 

 the seed-lobes ; and it is this system, with its recent 

 improvements or alterations, that is now in vogue 

 among botanists in the highest repute, whose chief 

 labours consist in its elaboration, by establishing new 

 orders, and removing plants supposed to be wrongly 

 classed, from one order to another; topics that lead 

 to innumerable minute details respecting the seed- 

 organ as well as the flower, and endless nibbling 

 criticisms respecting the accuracy, or the errors of 

 preceding botanists upon these subjects. But with all 

 due deference to the ingenious men who thus choose 

 to spend their time, I am disposed to look upon such 

 employment as precisely of the same character with 

 that of the Linnaean botanist, who counts his stamens 

 and pistils, or of the pin manufacturer, who sorts pins 



