PREFACE. xxv 
feme men cannot diftinguifh one ftroke 
from another in the cypher ? 
Thofe who have not learned to read the 
characters of nature for want of leifure, pa- 
tience, or any other caufe, ought not to 
complain that Linnaeus cannot make them 
fkillfull in a part of knowledge they are 
not qualified for. If a man unacquainted 
with the learned languages wants to know 
the meaning of a Greek word, will he com- 
plain of the lexicon, becaufe he cannot find 
it ? certainly not. Neither ought we to 
complain of Linnaeus in a fimilar cafe. 
This i think is a full anfwer to all the 
objections that have or can be made to his 
fyftem in general. What errors he has 
committed according to his own principles 
in relation to particulars is quite another 
queftion. I am one of thofe who think 
him not free from errors. Nor is it won- 
derfull that he fhould fall into fome, but it 
is truly wonderfull that one man fhould be 
able to invent and carry fo far fo nice and 
extenfive a fyftem, efpecially when we con- 
fider not only what he has done in botany, 
but what he has done in all the branches of 
natural 
