ARTIFICIAL CLASSIFICATION. 



89 



an artificial system, it renounces the pretension of presenting 

 naturally related groups. Therefore, it exposes this system 

 to no well founded reproach, that the affinities of Nature are 

 torn asunder, and the most dissimilar genera of plants 

 brought together. The Grasses are thus scattered through 

 several classes: the Labiate are found in two; the Cheno- 

 podege, the Rubiacese, the Palms, and many other families, in 

 several classes. Every artificial system, from the very cir- 

 cumstance of its assuming one simple principle, founded on 

 the relations of a few essential parts, must depart from Na- 

 ture. 



134. 



But the first well founded objection which may be made 

 to this celebrated system, consists in this, — that in many of the 

 classes more regard is paid to natural affinities, than the arti- 

 ficial structure of the system, and the unity of its principle 

 permit. If all Monadelphous plants must be referred to the 

 sixteenth Class, so must also a great number of the Diadel- 

 phous ; and the Melieae and the Malpighieae must be trans- 

 ferred from the tenth, and even from the eighth and fifth 

 Classes, into the sixteenth. If attention had not been paid to 

 natural affmity, all the single flowered plants, having their an- 

 thers united, ought to stand in the nineteenth Class. 



185. 



A second objection, and one of the most important, is, that 

 a greater value is placed upon numerical proportions, than 

 is ever observed to be justified by Nature. There are ge- - 

 nera of plants, such as Valeriana, Stellaria, Rhexia, and in- 

 numerable othersy which observe so httle steadiness in the 

 numerical proportions of the male parts, that Linnaeus must 

 necessarily have been perplexed, when he wished to assign to 

 these genera a definite class. He used, in such cases, to fall 

 upon three plans. 



In some genera, he remarked, in the Jlrst place, what nu- 

 merical proportion was established in most of the species. 

 When, for example, among nine Corivallarm, which were 



