overwhelming that very knowledge of affinities, to which, as just 

 said, he had consecrated the whole design of Botany. Prom this 

 latter artificial system, the dictionary, as the natural method has 

 been called the grammar, of the science, the Linnaean school of 

 botanists arose. Nor could it otherwise have happened during that 

 century, for the Natural Method, though the proposed scope of bota- 

 nists, existed as yet only in its rudiments. This want of all objec- 

 tive form hindered its progress long in Sweden, England, and Ger- 

 many. It was thus that Linnaeus proposed the natural families only 

 to a few select disciples, as that which, without a key, he regarded 

 as merely esoterical. It was thus, again, that they were lost sight of 

 by Linnoean botanists, and their new establishment, from the passive 

 observation of nature and physiology, was the work and is the honor 

 of French science. 



From Linnaeus and Jussieu together, therefore, the school of 

 our day proceeds, and they are the foundations of all our received 

 views. From the former we have the laws of science and the ideas 

 of affinities, as well as the ground-forms of all our constructions; 

 from the latter, a natural disposition of the genera of plants. 

 This disposition generally, and without reference to any particular 

 changes made in it since Jussieu, may be said to be an arrangement, 

 which, starting from the old distinction in the cotyledons, and adopt- 

 ing the ternary division, therefrom resulting, into MOJVOCOTYLEDO- 

 NE^E, DICOTYLEDONS^:, and ACOTYLEDONE.E, proceeds to bring 

 together plants under these in Classes, which in the Monocotyle- 

 doneae are distinguished by the hypogynous, perigynous, or epigy- 

 nous position of the stamens ; and in the Dicotyledonea?, (which are 

 divided generally into Apetalsa, Monopetalae, and Polypetalae,) by the 

 differences of various organs, but in particular of the capsule and the 

 seed ; the Acotyledonese together constituting a class by them- 

 selves ; while all these classes are once more divided into natural 

 Orders or families, under which the Genera are arranged. Or rather, 

 and more truly, the Jussieuan Method may be said to be an arrange- 

 ment of the Genera of plants in their natural Orders, which orders 

 are again brought together in higher but less definite Classes, and the 

 classes finally subordinated to the great divisions from the cotyledons. 



The genius of Jussieu was devoted wholly to the elucidation of 

 the natural Orders of families of plants ; and upon his labors here 

 rests the value of his Disposition; the classes and other higher 

 sections being only after arrangements of the orders, and under- 

 stood to be more or less indefinite and unsettled. 



Although the advance of knowledge expressed by the Method of 

 Jussieu was very great, its grander outlines were still (and unavoid- 

 ably) too indistinct to give it in any degree the advantage of a com- 

 plete system. Botanists still remained disciples of the artificial 

 Linnaean system, and according to its principles all the most impor- 

 tant works were written. But a new school was silently growing 

 up, worthy to represent, not what was called the Linnaean system, 

 but Linnaeus himself; nay, which surpassed Linnaeus and all pre- 

 vious science, as it ought to have done ; the school of Richard and 

 Decandolle, of Link and Nees, and finally of Robert Brown, who in 



