PART I. 

 NOMENCLA TUBE. 



CHAP. I. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 



A ^- 



jljlS all the departments of human knowledge and art, and 

 even all trades and occupations, have a multitude of peculiar 

 expressions, by which they designate certain things, proper- 

 ties, operations, and appearances ; and as, in Botany, amidst 

 the immense number of its different forms, every thing de- 

 pends upon our having a clear idea of these differences, the 

 necessity of a general agreement in the choice of expressions 

 for these different terms and properties is obvious ; since no 

 man will ever convey to another a distinct idea of any object, 

 if he either uses such expressions as that other person does 

 not understand, or if he employs them in a sense different 

 from that in which they are to be understood* 



6. 



The necessity of a general agreement imposes, no doubt, a 

 certain restraint, to which every person must submit; and 

 there has been no want of writers, both in our own and in 

 former times, who have entertained the idea of releasing them- 

 selves from this restraint, which to them was so oppressive ; 

 and who have, for this purpose, either indulged themselves 



