40 SOME THOUGHTS ON CLASSIFICATION 



Hence Linnaeus judged wisely for his time in forming a simple artifi- 

 cial system to assist in recording and rendering accessible the know- 

 ledge of species, the utility of which is proved by the almost universal 

 homage paid to him by his contemporaries ; hut although he had na 

 definite hope of our ever being able to define large natural groups^ 

 his sagacity discerned their existence, and he had the wisdom to per- 

 ceive their importance so that even the dim view of them given in his 

 natural families was a great progressive step. Labouring with eminent 

 advantages of talent, learning and opportunities, Jussieu advanced 

 to the definition of natural orders. De Candolle reduced vegetable 

 organography to a beautiful science and clearly expounded the princi- 

 ples on which inquiries tending to a natural classification of plants 

 must proceed. Other eminent men have distinguished new orders, 

 and others (amongst whom the late Dr. Lindley stands pre-eminent) 

 have entered on the labour of combining the so-called natural orders 

 into larger associations capable also of being well defined. All this 

 is progress, although there are doubtless great errors to correct and 

 important analogies not yet perceived, but it is remarkable that after 

 the great divisions given us by Jussieu, and now universally recog- 

 nized, we have advanced by working from the species upwards, find- 

 ing boundaries for genera orders and intermediate divisions, and at 

 length for alliances, but we have never clearly perceived how it is 

 best, primarily, to divide those great primary sections which can 

 only be compared with the sub-kingdoms or branches of the animal 

 kingdom and ought unquestionably to be so called. "We know Jus- 

 sieu's Aeotyledonece, Monocotyledonece and Dicotyledonece to be natural 

 divisions, suggested by several kinds of characters, and never to be 

 neglected without confusion, but the most plausible of other suggested 

 classes, so far as they are good, are but divisions of these, and nothing 

 is more remarkable in the science than the want of good classes to- 

 rank under these sub-kingdoms. The results of our labours upward 

 in the combination of species into genera, these into orders, and these 

 again into alliances, do not yet unite in good classes under each sub- 

 kingdom. Such for instance as the great sections or sub-classes of 

 the Dicotyledonese as given by De Candolle and by Lindley, must be 

 acknowledged not to be natural and are indeed ofi'ered as mere aids to 

 the student. Until this gap is properly supplied Botanical classifica- 

 tion must remain in a very unsatisfactory condition. It seems strange 

 that of the many great men who have employed their genius in im- 



