PREFACE. IX 



soil to remark, that a system and method, in the 

 above acceptation of the words, may be made to 

 amount to the very same thing; and he has even 

 been led to believe that a system or method entirely 

 founded on disfmctions must be artificial, whether 

 such distinctions be drawn from the consideration 

 of one or of one hundred parts. The chances, per^ 

 haps, are in favour of our being the least distant 

 from truth in the latter of these two cases : — but 

 after all, if any certain or positive difference can 

 exist between them, it seems to be, that the greater 

 the number of parts on which the distinctions are 

 founded, the less convenient for use will be that 

 particular method. 



Asystem has also been said to act precisely towards, 

 enabling mankind to derive advantage from disco- 

 veries in natural science, as a dictionary in a particu- 

 lar language enables the world to participate in the 

 discoveries that may have been madein that language. 

 Now this observation is perfectly just, provided the 

 system alluded to be an artificial one, and the dis- 

 coveries it elucidates be supposed to refer entirely to 

 nomenclature; for names in an artificial system are 

 exactly what words are in a dictionary. But all know- 

 ledge in natural history beyond this of nomenclature 

 is not (speaking properly) to be inculcated by a 

 system, but is collectively itself no other than the 

 Natural Systan- If, therefore, this natural system 



