82 TAXONOMY. 



to know whether or not the observed form be an entirely new 

 one, which no individual before us had observed ? This 

 most important service is perlbrmed for us by what has been 

 called the Metlwd ; that is to say, the Scientific Arrangement 

 and Division of Plants, either according to one common prin- 

 ciple, or according to Families and Groups, tlie common marks 

 of which have been learnt. 



Botanists have always been so much convinced of the im- 

 portance and utility of such an arrangement, that they have 

 regarded the knowledge of the laws of this arrangement as 

 the highest object of their exertions. 



123. 



As long as a small number only of plants were known, the 

 necessity of classification was not felt. But the more that 

 native plants have been studied, since the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century, the more has the necessity of such a me- 

 thod pressed itself upon our attention ; and however imperfect 

 the first attempts of Lobelius and Bauhin were, every unpre- 

 judiced person must confess, that the principle upon which 

 they proceeded, that, namely, of arranging plants, as Nature 

 has done, is the only right principle. 



In general, the various methods may he divided into the 

 Empirical and Scientific. Tlie former are at the same time 

 the most ancient. They are founded, not upon nature and 

 upon essential forms, but upon accidental things. The Al- 

 phabetical Arrangement of Plants, — or their division according 

 to their Uses, as when, for instance, the edible vegetables, the 

 orchard-trees, the forest-trees, and the ornamental plants, are 

 collected into distinct assemblages, — these are some of the 

 Empirical Methods. 



Although Scientijic Classifications have a reference to the 

 nature of the objects, there is, how ever, a multitude of views 

 which may furnish the foundation of such a division. No 

 person has pushed further the attempt to find out, and even 

 in some degree to complete, the manifold methods, according 

 to the various properties and parts of plants, than the immor- 

 tal Michael AcJanson^ who lias proposed no fewer than five- 



