176 
LINN JEAN AND NATURAL ARRANGEMENTS OF PLANTS. 
in possession of an extensive knowledge of the subject; and by the facility 
with which it has been acquired, it is unfitted or gets a distaste for the more 
thorough investigation that natural systems require. The former, Dr. Lindley 
observes, “ skims only the surface of things, and leaves the student in the fancied 
possession of a sort of information which is easy enough to obtain, but which is 
of little value when acquired”; the latter, the same writer continues, “requires 
a minute investigation of every part and every property known to exist in plants, 
but when understood has conveyed to the mind a store of information of the 
utmost use to man in every station of life. Whatever the difficulties of becoming 
acquainted with plants according to this method, they are inseparable from 
Botany, which cannot be usefully studied without encountering them.” Sir John 
Herschel quotes this passage in his Discourse on Natural 'Philosophy , and 
remarks that it “ characterises justly the merits of natural and artificial systems 
of classification in general.” The same author observes, with regard to the 
subject before us, that “the classifications by which science is advanced are widely 
different from those which serve as bases for artificial systems of nomenclature.” 
If, then, the natural system is the only mode by which the science of Botany 
can be advanced, and the adoption of the Linnsean system leads to its rejection, 
I think it is but a fair conclusion that the adoption of the Linnsean system is 
“ prejudicial to the advancement of the science of Botany.” 
But the advocates of the Linnsean system say, that it is so easy, and the 
natural system so difficult, that whilst the one attracts, the other repels the 
student of Botany. The best argument that Sir W. J. Hooker offers for 
arranging his British Flora according to the Linnsean system, is that it enables 
the student to discover the name of a plant with more facility than the natural 
system. Now, undoubtedly, the acquiring the names of the classes and orders 
is much easier in the Linnsean, than the natural system; but I have no hesita¬ 
tion in saying, that a person who understands the distinctions of the classes and 
orders of the latter, will with much greater facility discover the genus and species 
of a plant than when he has attained the same amount of information in the 
former system. For in studying the orders of the natural system he will have 
made himself acquainted with many points of structure that are afterwards taken 
into consideration in the distinctions of genera and species. But how different is 
the case with the artificial system! when the classes and orders are understood 
little more than a knowledge of the stamens and pistils has been acquired, and 
this will help a student but a very small way towards finding the name of a 
plant. If the knowledge of the number of the pistils and stamens would enable 
the botanist to find the genus and species of a plant, it would indeed be an easy 
way of discovering its name; but as this is a very secondary department in 
Botany, such a plan could only be valued on this account, and even then its 
