Classification, 13 



kind or degree of classification was adopted. This was no less 

 natural than necessary, and was founded on the same great 

 principles of general resemblance and similarity of properties 

 which form the basis of the most complete modern system. 

 The most superficial observer, says Dr. Smith, must perceive 

 something like the classification of nature. The Grasses, 

 Umbelliferous Plants, Mosses, Sea Weeds, Ferns, Liliaceous 

 Plants, each constitute a family strikingly similar in form and 

 qualities among themselves, and no less evidently distinct from 

 all others. It is singular, that in all other departments of natu- 

 ral science, such a method of classification is strictly adhered 

 to, while in Botany, principles have been introduced, which in 

 Zoology would lead to the greatest absurdities. The earliest 

 attempts at the classification of plants only extended to a few 

 simple divisions, formed from the widest distinctions. One 

 ancient writer, for instance, divides vegetables into water 

 plants, parasites, pot herbs, forest trees, and corn plants; 

 another into aromatics, gum bearing plants, eatable vege- 

 tables, and corn herbs. Many centuries elapsed before 

 any thing further was effected towards a more correct and 

 precise arrangement, and it was not till the year 1570 that 

 Lobel, a Flemish botanist, made important improvements in 

 the former methods of distinction, and by the use of more defi- 

 nite characters than had before been, employed, laid the groun- 

 work of the present system. Several authors of eminence fol- 

 lowed, whose principles of classification were the same. At 

 length, near the end of the seventeeth century, the necessity 

 began to be felt, of greater precision, and this fed to the inven- 

 tion of a system, which, partly from the renown of its author, 

 and partly from its simplicity and the readiness with which it 

 may be understood and applied, has obtained the greatest 

 celebrity. The first attempt at what is now called the Artifi- 

 cial System, was made by Rivinus, who, in 1690, invented a 

 system depending on the formation of the corolla. He was fol- 

 lowed by Kamel and by Magnol, whose methods depended, 

 the first on the formation of the calyx, and the second on that 

 of the calyx and corolla together. It was reserved for Lin- 

 naeus, in 1731, to complete the ideas of his predecessors by the 

 invention of the system since so universally adopted, and named 



