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PART II. 



REVIEWS. 



Art. I. Systematic Botany. 



Caroli Linncei Systema Vegetabilium, editio decima-sexta curante 

 Curtio Sprengel. Vols. 1. & 2. Gotiingce, 1825, 8vo. 



I he physical sciences are generally supposed to depend 

 almost entirely upon the powers of human observation for 

 their perfection and final developement , and it was formerly 

 admitted as an incontrovertible axiom, that philosophical 

 induction or metaphysical classification had little or no effect 

 upon the actual amount of ascertained facts, or, which is the 

 same thing, upon the elements of science. It has been a 

 common belief that the classification of natural objects had no 

 other end than that of forming a sort of index to the science 

 of natural history, and that systems bore the same relation to 

 sciences as alphabets to languages. With regard to botany, 

 the description of a plant, with a detail of its qualities in 

 medicine or art, actual or supposed, was the utmost which 

 was attempted by the most celebrated writers, and it certainly 

 was never by such persons for a moment supposed that an 

 acquaintance with the mutual relations and affinities of the 

 vegetable kingdom, would in any degree influence the dis- 

 covery of new objects. But the experience of modern times 

 has shown that directly the reverse of this opinion is con- 

 sonant with facts, and thai so long as the mind remained 

 occupied in no other manner than in the acquisition of new 

 plants, without knowing in what way to appreciate their re- 

 spective peculiarities, discoveries continued to be made slowly, 

 and to be of little value when made. As soon, however, as 

 botanists arrived at the art of arranging, upon philosophical 

 principles, the materials which they possessed, their attention 

 was strongly directed towards supporting their respective 

 systems by the addition of new objects and of new facts. 



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