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204 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
but only some trace of resemblance in the organisation, which may 
be found also in a number of very different plants. 
Linneeus was endowed with too sound a judgment, with a 
tact too exquisite, not to feel the defects of this artificial mode 
of classification. He detected by the force of his genius the 
existence of vegetable groups superior to genera, and connected 
them by a large number of characteristics. He called this group 
a natural order, and it has since his time been called the 
“natural family.” He also tried to distribute plants after a 
natural classification—that is to say, into families. After the 
death, and during the life, of Linnzus, botanists endeavoured 
to discover upon what principle he had founded his natural 
orders—that is to say, they sought to find the key to the hidden 
principle of his orders; but no one has succeeded. Linnaxus 
himself does not appear to have had very fixed views on the 
subject. He created his orders by a sort of instinct which belongs 
only to the man of genius; by that kind of semi-divination which 
the man of learning acquires who possesses vast and profound 
knowledge of the objects which he passes his life in observing. 
Linneus created his natural orders, then, without any well- 
premeditated plan, and without having compared any well-defined 
assemblage of organs ; this is sufficiently proved by the following 
conversation with one of his pupils named Giseke, which has been 
preserved, and which we consider sufficiently interesting to repeat 
here, leaving the interlocutors to speak each for himself :— 
Liynavus. Do you think, my dear Giseke, you are able to give the characters of 
any one of my orders ? 
Gisexe. Yes, without doubt; for example, that of the umbellifera. 
Linnzvus. Well, what of it? 
Gisexz. That is true, I recollect some. I will add the two naked 
Livnxvs. Not at all; it is most certainly an umbellifera, for it has an involucré, 
five stamens, two pistils. What then shall be its character ? . 
Gisexe. Such plants ought to be placed at the end of an order where they ™ / 
bridge over the passage from one to another. The Eryngiwm would thus connec 
the Umbellifera with the Aggregata. 
Livzvs. Oh, no, that is quite another thing; it is one thing to know the 
