Order 53d. SCABRID.E. Here also the lectures are silent. Forshshlea and TropAis are added in the manuscript.
Nothing occurs here, either in the Prakdiones or the manuscript, to the purpose of our present in quiry, concerning the ideas of Linnaeus on natural classification. These orders are all natural, and ac knowledged as such by all systematics. His parti cubir observations on each, although in many points curious are now superseded by the advanced state of botanical knowledge in the cryptogamic depart ment.
From the foregoing copious exposition of the ge neral principles, and many of the particular opinions, of Linnaeus, respecting a natural classification of plants, it will appear how far he was from consider ing his performances, in this line, His leading ideas may, nevertheless, be and they will often be found to throw great light upon the sub ject. It must be remembered that be never thought his own, or any other, scheme of natural classification, could or ought to interfere with his artificial system, nor does he ever advert to the one, in treating of the other. It is evident, likewise, ;hat he studiously discouraged any attempt at an uniform defini tion, or technical discrimination, of his several or ders. He perceived that plants were not yet suffi ciently known to render such a scheme practicable.
Possibly he might be aware that the accomplishment of that scheme at present would only tarn his natu ral system into an artificial one.
The authors of most plans of botanical classifica tion have, on the other band, seldom considered the questions of natural and artificial arrangement, as opposed to each other. The system of every such author seems to have appeared to himself the most consonant to nature, as well as the most convenient in practice ; yet nothing betrays a more absolute in competency to the subject than such an idea, where. ever it makes itself manifest. To pretend that the elaborate speculations of a proficient, on a subject of which he can see but a part, and on which his knowledge must necessarily be inferior to that infi nite wisdom which planned and perfected the whole, should be uneasy and certain mode of initiation for a learner evinces no more than that the professor wishes his pupil should not be wiser than himself. To teach composition without a grammar, or philology with out an alphabet, would be equally judicious. Plants must be known before they can be compared, and the talent of discrimination must precede that of combination. Clearness and facility must smooth the path of the tyro ; difficulties, exceptions, and paradoxes must be combated and unravelled by an adept. The knowledge of natural classification therefore, being the summit of botanical science, cannot be the first step towards the acquirement of that science. No person surely, who has published a natural system, without knowing all the plants in the world, will suppose that he has removed every present obstacle, much less, anticipated every future obscurity, so that no insuperable difficulty can occur to the investigator of plants by such a_ system. Neither can any artificial system claim such perfee lion. But they may combine their powers, and co operate in instruction.. The one may trace an out line which the other may correct and fill up. The first may propose, and the second elucidate ; the former may educate and improve the memory and observation, for the use of the latter. When they oppose each other, their several defects and weak messes appear; by mutual assistance they strengthen themselves.