286 Scientific Intelligence. 



can be kept within, or not much beyond a couple of hundred, it may 

 reasonably be expected that a botanist of ordinary capacity shall obtain a 

 sufficient general idea of their nature and characters to call them at any 

 time individually to his mind for the purpose of comparison; but double 

 that number, and all is confusion. 



"This inevitable confusion and the necessity of maintaining in some 

 way the larger groups have been pei"ceiv«d by those even who have gone 

 the fartliGst in lowering the scale of orders and genera. As a remedy they 

 propose to erect the old genera into independent orders, and the old orders 

 into classes or alliances. This is but an incomplete resumption of the 

 old principles without the advantages of the old nomenclature, 



" It must be recollected that, although we choose a well-defined and 

 natural group as the one to which we give a generic name, yet this is 

 tio indication that the group is considered as the best defined, or better 



defined than the group immediately above it; on the contrary it is fre- 



quently less so. It is by no means pretended that Urostigma or Phar- 

 macosyce are better defined than the old genus Ficus, or that the new 

 genera that have lately been cut out of the old genus Begonia form more 

 natural groups than Begonia itself does ; but the principle in these cases 

 seems to be adopted, that the lowest definable group above a species is a 

 genus. Go a step farther, and every species becomes a genus with a sub- 

 stantive name ! 



"And let it not be forgotten, that although the analytical process carried 

 to the uttermost is necessary for the purpose of ascertaining the facts 

 upon which botanical science is based, it is a judicious synthesis alone 

 which can enable the human mind to take anything like a comprehensive 

 view of those facts, to deduce from them the principles of the science, or 

 to communicate to others either facts or principles.'' 



The philosophical side of the question remains to be discussed. It is 

 much to be wished that Mr. Beutham would bring his sound judgment, 

 logical acumen, and rich store of knowledge to bear upon the principles 

 of botanical classification in general, and the grounds in nature upon 

 which our systems rest. If species^ and they alone, are the true subjects 

 of classification ; if the relationship of species is what the naturalist en- 

 deavors to express in the forms of genera, orders, classes, etc. ; if these rela- 

 tionships are very various in degree, and even indefinite, so that the grades 

 of aflinity or groups they indicate are not always (and perhaps not gene- 

 rally) completely circumscribed in nature ; and if, consequently, the defini- 

 tion of genera, <fec. involves questions not of things^ between which abso- 

 lute distinctions might be drawn, but of degrees of resemblance^ which may 

 be expected to present indefinite gradations ; 'then the suggestions of this 

 article are as philosophical as they are practically useful, and the proper 

 limitation of genera and other groups, — always the decisive test of a natu- 

 ralist's genius— is a matter of sound judgment and sagacity, enlightened 

 by wide experience, and not of arbitrary rules deduced from any precon- 

 ceived system. a. £>• 



2. Syhopsis Plantarnm Phanerogamicariun novarum omnium per an- 

 nos 1851-1855 descriptarum ; auctore Dr. Carolo Mceller; or: Wal- 

 ters Annales Botankes Syste7natic(^, torn, iv, fasc. 1. Leipsic, 1857, 

 — Dr. Miiller, it will be seen from this double title, has commenced a con- 

 tm nation of that necessary repertory of newly published species of plants, 

 variously dispersed through memoirs, journals, and systematic works, 



