The genera thus circumstanced are so very few, as far as we have discovered, that possibly th; class might, but for the uniformity of thelystein, be abolished. We cannot indeed tell what future discoveries may be made ; and its character, on the above foundation, is sufficiently clear and permanent for flowers of an essentially different configuration, can hardly vary into each other. The orders of the last class of the Linmean system, Cryptogansia, are natural, and preserved, all nearly the same, by every systematic projector. The original appendix to this system, the Palma, would be a great blemish there in, as an artificial arrangement ; for such an arrange. ment_ought to be so formed as to admit every thing, on some principle or other. But this stumbling block is now removed. The palm tribe were placed thus by themselves, merely till their fructification should be sufficiently known. • Now they are found to agree well with some of the established classes and orders, where they meet with several of their natural allies.
Whatever advantages might accrue to the practi cal study of botany, from the convenience and faci lity of his artificial system, Linnaeus was from the beginning intent on the discovery of a more philoso phical arrangement of plants, or, in other words, the classification of nature. This appears from the 77th aphorism of the very first edition of his Fusdarnenta Botanica, published in 1786, where he mentions his design of attempting to trace out fragments of a na tural method. In the corresponding section of his Philosophic Botanica, he, fifteen years afterwards, performed his promise; and the same Fragmenta, as he modestly called them, were- subjoined to the 6th edition of his Genera Plantation, the last that ever came from his own hiuids. The interleaved copies of these works, with his manuscript 'notes, evince how assiduously and constantly he laboured at this subject, as long as he lived. He was accustomed to deliver a particular cottrie of lectures upon it, from time to time, to a small and select number of pupils, who were for this purpose domesticated under his roof. What this great botanist has himself given to the world, on the subject under consideration, is in deed nothing more than a skeleton of a system, con sisting of mere names or titles of natural orders, amounting in his Philosophia to 67, besides an ap pendix of doubtful genera ; and that number is, m the Genera Plantarum, reduced to 58.
Under the title of each order, the genera which compose it are ranged according to the author's ideas of their relationship to each other, as appears by some of his manuscript corrections ; and some of the orders are subdivided into sections, or parcels of genera more akin to each other than to the rest. He ingenuously avowed, at all times, his inability to define his orders by characters. He conceived that they were more or less connected with each other, by several points of affinity, so as to form a map, rather than a series. The experienced botanist, who peruses the above-mentioned Fragmenta, will in most cases readily imbibe the ideas of author, as to the respective affinities of the genera. In some few
instances, as the Dumosce, where he avows his own doubts, and the Hokracme where he is unusually paradoxical, it is more difficult to trace the chain of his ideas. Such however was all the assistance he thought himself competent to afford. His distin guished pupils Fabricius and Giseke fortunately took notes of his lectures on natural orders ; and by the care of the latter, to whom Fabricius communicated what he had likewise preserved, their joint acquisi tions have been given to the public, in an octavo vo lume at Hamburgh, in 1792. Nor was this done without the permission of their venerable teacher, who told Giseke by word of mouth, when they took leave of each other, that " as he loved him, he had laboured with pleasure in his service ;" adding, that " Giseke was at liberty to publish, whenever he pleased, any thing that he had retained from his own instructions." Linnaeus, according to a conversation with Giseke, recorded in the preface of the volume edited by the latter, declined to the last any attempt to define in word; the characters of his orders. His reason for this appears in his Classes Plantiirum, where be just ly remarks, that no certain principle, or key, for any such definition can be proposed, till all the orders, and consequently all the plants, in the world are known. He has however so far expressed his opi nion, in the work last quoted, as to point out the i situation of the seed itself, with respect to other parts, and the situation and direction of its vegetat ing point, or corculum, as most likely to lead to a scheme of natural classification. Hence the system of Ctesalpinus stood very high in his estimation. He also, in the conversation above-mentioned, divides his own orders into three sections, or classes, Mono cotyledons, comprising the first ten orders, with the 15th : Dicotyledons, (with two or more cotyledons), the 11th to the 54th order, inclusive, except the 15th ; and Acotykdones, order 55th to 58th, with a hint that the last, or Fungi, ought perhaps to be al together excluded. This distribution of plants, by the Humber or the absence of the cotyledons, er lobes of the seed, is the great hinge of all the pro fessedly natural modes of arrangement that have been attempted. We shall for the present not enter on the consideration of this principle, as it will more properly be explained when we examine the system of Jussieu. Linmeos did not consider it as absolute, for he told Giseke that he knowingly admitted into his 11th order some plants that are monocotyledo nous, with others that are dicotyledonous. The rea son of this was the only secret he kept from his pu pil, nor could the latter ever dive into it, though he afterwards endeavoured to learn it from the younger Linnaeus, who knew nothing, neither did be, as Giseke says, much care, about the matter. We hope to be able to throw some light upon this mystery, when we come to the order in question.