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LETTEE ADDEESSED TO M. FEANgOIS CEEPIN, 



By M, Alexis Jordan. 



Monsieur, — The appearance of the 5tli fascicle of your Notes 

 Critiques" * shews with what ardour and success you continue your studies 

 of the plants of Belgium. It is much to he desired that such zeal as yours 

 should amongst ourselves, find many imitators. It seems to me that you 

 would attain to results still grander for science, if you could put yourself in such 

 a position as to enahle you to compare living specimens of the plants which 

 you bring under your judgment and above all to lay yourself out for some ex- 

 periments upon them. In simply passing under review, as you have done, the 

 opinions or descriptions of various authors, so as to compare them with each 

 other, you are under the necessity of supposing, without certain proof, that 

 these authors have described plants specifically identical, or that they have 

 been equally conscientious and exact in describing them. 



You very justly criticise MM. Bentham and Cosson for their arbitary 

 reunion of species, which simply bears witness, as you say, to their complete 

 ignorance of facts. But do you not also think, that in holding as suspected, 

 or in reducing without any proofs, the species proposed by others, who have 

 studied them comparatively, in- the living state, and are assured by prolonged 

 experiments of the stability of their characters, one equally encounters this 

 reproach of ignorance ? There are those with whom this ignorance of facts 

 is somewhat voluntary. We often hear them appeal to experiments, when 

 the experiments which they entreat, have already been made and even 

 frequently repeated by competent observers. Being determined to take 

 no account of any experiment which does not put right on their side, 

 whatever fails them always requires doing. 



In your " Considerations on Species" apropos of one of my works t 

 where you have given expression to many truisms with regard to the Linnean 

 School, I have to point out an inaccuracy, no doubt unintended, but still not 

 the less grave, in your appreciation of my opinions, or rather of their basis. 

 All my arguments repose, as on a solid foundation, on two facts, given by 

 me as incontrovertible. The first is, that there exist numerous closely re- 

 * Notes sur quelques Plaiites rares on critiques de la Belgique. 5tli ftisc. 

 + Vide, " Naturalist" Vol. i. page 345, d seq. and Yol. ii, p. 1., et seq. 



No. 44, February 15. t 



