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Linnsean and Natural Systems, 



In accordance with the general wish that we would enter 

 more fully into the description of both the Linnaean and Natural 

 Systems, we have prepared plate 3, which shows at a glance every- 

 thing relating to the classification of the former. The numbers 

 in the plate correspond to those of the Introduction, a reference 

 to the classes of which will explain the figures. Linneeus took 

 great pains to trace the notion of sexes in plants to the remotest 

 periods of antiquity. He informs us that Empedocles, Anaxa- 

 goras, and other ancient philosophers, not only attributed the 

 distinction • of sexes to plants, but maintained that they were 

 capable of perceiving pleasure and pain. Hippocrates and The- 

 ophrastus distinguished several trees in the same way ; the latter 

 of these writers affirming that the fruit of the palm will not germi- 

 nate unless the pollen of the male be shaken over the female 

 flowers previous to the ripening of the seed. Dr. Grew, of Eng- 

 land, was the first one who did much for the spread of the theory ;. 

 yet it still made little progress till the time of Linnaeus, who, al- 

 though he can have no title to the claim of discoverer, is univer- 

 sally acknowledged as the chief supporter and improver of the 

 doctrine. He first attempted to show that vegetables are endowed 

 with a certain degree of life ; and secondly, that they propagate 

 their species in a manner similar to animals. 



" That vegetables are really living beings," says he, " must be 

 obvious at first sight : because they possess all the properties 

 contained in that accurate definition of the great Dr. Harvey, 

 namely, Vita est spontanea propulsio humorum. Universal ex- 

 perience teaches that vegetables propel humors or juices ; hence 

 it is plain that vegetables must be endowed with a certain degree 

 of life." 



" Every animal must not only begin to exist, and have that 

 existence dissolved by death, but must likewise pass through a 

 number of intermediate changes in its appearance and affections. 

 Infancy, youth, manhood, old age, are characterized by imbe- 

 cility, beauty, fertility, dotage ; are not all these vicissitudes con- 



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