The vegetable SYSTEM. 
67 
Previous to the natural Syftem, an artificial one mufi; be formed, 
merely to affifi: the memory, and make us certain of the Plant we 
examine : for reafon tells us, we muft know a thing by fight, before 
we can pretend to alfign it a proper place. 
And certainly, fuch a Syftem maybe formed for this purpofe, as 
wfith very little time or trouble, will enable a perfon unacquainted 
with Botany, to find out an unknown Plant, as certainly as he would 
a word in a dictionary. 
This will fuit alike all the purpofes of beginners; for, befide the 
regular fiudents, there are many people of diftinCtion poffelfed of 
great variety of Plants, that have neither time nor inclination for 
botanical refearches, and yet wifii to name a Tree or Herb that draws 
their attention. For thele, and for the fair fex, this index is calcu- 
lated. It has therefore no title to the name of Syftem ; let it be 
called a botanical Index or Dictionary. Here we fix upon arbitrary 
V characters for Claffes, Tribes, and DIvifions; under thefe every 
Genus muft be marflialled, and, in order to keep the Genera facred 
and intire, wherever there are found Species in a Genus, differing 
from the characters its companions range under, the Genus will 
be repeated in fome other Clafs, to whofe laws the diffenting Species 
will fubmit, and that, toties quoties, wherever fuch difference ap- 
pears. What is faid with regard to ClaffTes, holds alfo in the inferior 
orders ; fo that in this index we ftiall find a Genus, not only repeated 
in different Claffes, but feveral times in the fame Clafs under dif- 
ferent orders. This will be fo far from breeding confufion, that it 
will produce an abfolute certainty of the Plant fought for : and to 
make it ftill more eafy, the Flower of each Plant, expreflive of the 
particular character it is ranged under; its habit and its other dif- 
tinCtive parts, will be engraved : This will be fufficient to anfwer all 
the views intended by this Index. Here then all Genus’s will be kept 
intire, though in their arrangement. Nature will be totally negleCted : 
and with regard to the fpecies, the part from whence the fpecific 
character is drawn, whether it be Leaf, Flower, Habit, &c. will be 
alfo engraved. 
Thus we have an univerfal dictionary to the Vegetable kingdom, 
equally ufeful to the young beginner, and the real Botanilt ; for 
where 
