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BOTANICAL CLASSIFICATION. 
The science of botany is naturally separable into two departments ; the one 
comprising the physiological and functional processes and products of plants, the 
other arranging and classifying them according to their structural affinities. It 
requires no ingenuity to show that the former of these is immeasurably the more 
interesting and useful ; and that an acquaintance with the latter, obtained only 
from the names and superficial appearance of the more prominent organs of vege- 
tation, is little better than a knowledge of the simple alphabet of a language, with- 
out the capacity for understanding the meaning of the letters when connected into 
words and sentences. 
If it be asked, What then is the real utility of botanical systems ? — the answer 
is easy. The present age is notoriously a systematizing one. Its laws, its 
agricultural, commercial, and financial polity, its education, its very literature, are 
all valued or despised, successful or abortive, in the attainment of their ultimate 
design, as they develop a certain degree of natural order and arrangement. This is 
especially the case with sciences. By collecting into groups those objects which 
bear the nearest resemblance to each other, by again uniting these groups to such 
as assimilate most closely to them in character, an unbroken chain is formed, by 
which the student may proceed from link to link in the examination and compre- 
hension of the whole, or at once discover any desired subject, on referring to the 
division wherein its characteristics are embodied. 
Let us not be mistaken, however, to imply that the study of systematic botany 
should be preliminary to the acquirement of some knowledge of the common 
mechanism of the organs and offices of plants. This latter is indispensable to the 
most consummate tyro in botanical classification ; for unless the structure of a plant 
is understood, no system in which the peculiar features of that structure form the 
distinguishing characters, can possibly be otherwise than abstruse and unin- 
telligible. We are aware that the course here advocated is contrary to the 
general practice, but are nevertheless satisfied of its propriety. 
Yarious arrangements have been successively devised by the greatest masters 
of botany, and these, as in most other sciences, have generally been modifications 
or improvements of those which preceded them. Only two at present survive, — 
the Linnaean and Jussieuan, — respectively founded by the individuals whose names 
they bear. Of these, the former may be considered as almost exploded, since nearly 
all the most distinguished botanists of Europe have avowedly renounced it. It 
is still retained by a few individuals, who value it solely on account of its simpli- 
city, and the facility with which it may be acquired. 
From the classification of Jussieu being disposed according to the natural 
affinities of plants, it has received the designation of the Natural System, and 
VOL. VI. NO. LXVI. S 
