i?5 
ON THE RELATIVE ADVANTAGES OF THE LINNiEAN AND 
NATURAL ARRANGEMENTS OF PLANTS. 
By Edwin Lankester, 
Member of the Royal College of Surgeons. 
In your last number (p. 68) your talented contributor, Mr. Lees, has furnished 
a notice of botanical works, which I should have been glad to have found occupy¬ 
ing the place of my brief communication in your December number (Vol. II., 
p. 470). I should not have troubled you with any remarks on Mr. Lees’ paper 
but that he has asserted that the rejection of the Linnoean system is 44 unphiloso- 
phieal,” and that the reason of it appears to him to be 44 merely because in some 
respects it seems to offer greater facilities for tempting votaries to the temple of 
Flora.” In making the remark I did, in my communication of December last, 
on the Ladies Botany , I stated that Dr. Lindley discarded the artificial system 
as prejudicial to the science of Botany, and gave no opinion of my own on the 
subject; therefore Mr. Lees was premature in disagreeing with me on that point. 
As, however, many of your readers may wish to know why so competent a 
botanist as Dr. Lindley deems the Linnsean system prejudicial to the advance¬ 
ment of the science of Botany, I will endeavour to state a few objections to that 
system; and, whatever may be their force or value, I hope they will find the 
Doctor, and those who adopt his views, at least 44 not guilty” of the charge 
brought against them by Mr. Lees. 
It cannot be supposed that Mr. Lees or any other botanist would deny the 
superiority of the natural over the artificial system in a scientific point of view. 
In every department of knowledge the value of a natural arrangement of its objects 
is acknowledged, and the most eminent naturalists have laboured to improve 
this department of science. The question at issue must then be, whether the 
adoption of the Linnsean system at all is injurious to the interests of Botany 
as a science ? 
In the first place, it must be admitted, that the general adoption of any system 
which excludes a better from being brought into use must be prejudicial to 
science. It is not certainly necessary that the natural system of Botany should 
be neglected because the Linnsean has been adopted, but unfortunately this is 
too often the case, and systems are frequently adopted and adhered to as matters 
of feeling and not as matters of judgment. Hence it is of importance to science 
that those commencing their career should not have their prejudices enlisted on 
the side of false theories or exploded systems, especially when the means of 
obtaining correct views are easily attainable. 
By the study, also, of an artificial system the mind is apt to suppose itself 
