Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/438

 408 by either of these authors. A student may acquire a competent knowledge of natural orders, with very great pleasure to himself, by repeatedly turning over the work of Jussieu with any known plants in his hand, and contemplating their essential generic characters in the first place, and then what regards their habit and affinities; proceeding afterwards to combine in his own mind their several points of agreement, till he is competent to form an idea of those assemblages which constitute natural Classes and Orders. This will gradually extend his ideas; whereas a contrary mode would only contract them, and his Jussieu would prove merely an artificial guide, without the advantages of facility or perspicuity.