

X 



PREFAdi:. 



sonably conclude that the natural affinities of 

 plants are real, and not fancied, and tl)at our 

 attempts to arrange them accordingly will attain 

 a high degree of perfection, as we become more 

 familiar with the objects of the vegetable king- 

 dom. It is not, however, to be contemplated, 

 that natural arrangement will ever be rendered 

 so complete as to supercede the artificial plan, 

 founded by T.innseus on the number, situation, 

 proportion, and connection of the stamens and 

 pistils; which, when it has received frdm the 

 process of science, those fcw amendments, of which 

 it at present stands more or less in need, will 

 become perfect as an artijicial systeu), which is 

 all it professes to be.* The aim, indeed, of 



is clearly 



different; and it is altogether unnecessary, and 

 improper, to consider these methods as opposed; 

 or to urge that the latter separates genera, be- 

 tween which there is a strong relationship and 

 analogy, and involves unnatural assemblages. In 

 answer to this it is sufficient to admit, that the 

 artificial plan, as its distinctive appellation un- 

 equivocally explains, does not profess to be a 

 natural one; but is intended to assist the memory, 



* See an able defence of the Linnacan plan, by Mr. Roscoc, 

 in the Transactions of the Linnijoan Society. 



natural and artificial arrangement 



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