OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHANGES OF SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 299 
divest himself of all the prejudices—and they are not a few—which have 
grown up with the system of Jussieu, and that have taken deep root in 
the minds of his followers : he must judge for himself upon every single 
point that may come before him ; and he must forget that any such 
artificial arrangements have existed as those of Jussieu himself, De 
Candolle, and others. It is even to be expected that the organs of 
vegetation will be, for this purpose, employed even more than those of 
the fructification; and that anatomical characters analogous to those 
which characterise the really natural primary divisions of Vasculares 
and Cellulares, and of Exogence and Endogence , will be applied to the 
grouping, in subordinate masses, of the orders themselves. 
“ At present (1832) scarcely any attempts of this nature have been 
made, except by Agardh and Bartling; but the endeavours of those 
botanists, however meritorious, are far from coming up to what may be 
expected. 5 ’ 
From the foregoing observations, and from many other opinions 
appearing in the literary labours of Dr. Lindley, as in his “ Nixtis 
Plantariim ,” &c., it is evident that he sees before him an ideal sem¬ 
blance of a simpler, and consequently more harmonious, scheme of 
systematic botany than that of Jussieu, or at least a simplification of 
that eminent botanist’s plan, embracing the essentials alluded to in the 
passage quoted above. 
The possibility and practicability of such a thing are thus admitted, 
and the necessity of it every one must allow is universally evident, on 
comparing together the descriptions of different botanical writers. Not 
only in the monthly periodicals of our own country, but among the 
equally erudite authors on the continent, we can notice discrepancies, 
which show that the writers have not all been taught in the same 
school, or under the same master. 
There is no hope that the remodelling of the Jussieuan system will 
ever be accomplished by the labour of any one man; it should be 
undertaken by an association of professors, each of whom should not 
only be good practical botanists, but also have at hand a full botanical 
library, and, what is still better, a well-selected classified herbarium. 
When the principles and the grand outline of the new system are once 
fixed and adopted, the details might be completed consecutively, as 
leisure or opportunities allowed. 
The following extract from the excellent address of Earl Stanhope, 
President of “ The Medico-Botanical Society,” for the anniversary 
meeting, January 16th, 1836, bears materially on some of the points 
above stated:— 
