S065 a THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
is the first author who uses the happy term “ family ” to desig- 
nate natural groups of vegetable genera. M. Florens speaks of 
eult problem. The following lines are taken from this much > 
admired preface: “ Having examined the methods most in use,” | 
says Magnol, “and found that of Morison insufficient and> very 
defective, and that of Ray much too difficult, I think I can ‘perceive 
in plants a certain.affinity between them, so that they might be — 
ranged in divers families, as we class animals. This apparent © 
analogy between animals and plants has induced me to arrange 
them in certain families, and, as it appeared to me impossible to 
draw the characters of these families from the single organ of - 
fructification, I have selected principally the most noted character- 
istics I have met with, such as the root, the stem, the flower, the 
seeds. There is also found among plants a certain similitude, 
a certain affinity, as it were, which does not exist in any of the — 
parts considered separately, but only as a whole. I have no ~ 
_ doubt, for instance, but that the characters of families might be _ 
"taken from the~first TeafOf-the germ as it:issued from-the sevd. 
I have followed the order that protects the parts of plants in 
which are found the principal and distinctive family marks, but 
without limiting myself to any one single part; for I have often — 
considered many of them together.” ra 
Magnol established seventy-six families, but without giving 
their characters. His principles of classification are vague and 
uncertain ; they only serve to announce the dawn of anew day | 
which was soon to rise on the science. The few lines which we | 
have quoted from the preface of the ‘ Prodromus” reveals, 3 pe 
through a fog, the mere idea of a natural system. It is Bernard de ao 
Jussieu, Demonstrator of Botany in the Jardin des Plants at Paris, © a 
to whom belongs the glory of working out the true natural system | 
which was first established in principle by Ray, although it does — 
not appear that Jussieu was acquainted with the works of the | 
English philosopher. + 
Bernard de Jussieu, as his nephew Laurent de Jussieu tells 0, — 
regarded botany, not as a science of memory or nomenclature, but 
as a science of combination, founded on a profound knowledge of 
