Page:Books from the Biodiversity Heritage Library (IA mobot31753002447982).pdf/6

 be expected to inform others what they do not well understand themselves." For example, opinion is divided on the question of the existence or non-existence of a Natural System, some maintaining that there really is one of nature's own contrivance and others, that the, so called, "Natural System" is neither more nor less than a human contrivance by which the most nearly related species are brought together and placed, as much as possible in juxta position. This last doctrine I for one reject as unphilosophical and utterly at variance with innu- merable facts and indications of wise design and contrivance which every divi- sion of nature presents for our consideration and instruction: without, however, going so far as to deny that those who maintain the doctrine can adduce many strong arguments in its support.

Those who maintain the existence of a Natural System set out by showing the admirable symmetry and just proportion which all nature's works, from the greatest to the least, present and bear to each other: and by tracing the delicate progression from group to group, family to family, and species to species, thence assume that there is not only a Natural System, but further, uphold the doctrine that there can be but ONE, justly observing, that it is impossible to suppose tha:, ALMIGHTY WISDOM, if he admitted system at all into his works of creation, would execute them so imperfectly as to admit irregularities, much less a medley of systems. The object then, of the philosophical naturalist is, they maintain, to approach as nearly as our finite faculties will permit towards the realization of this one grand and sublime idea, the discovery of The Natural System of or- ganized beings.

Two methods are now in use for the attainment of this end or rather, limit- ing the statement to the vegetable kingdom, for the solution of the problem, what is the natural system of plants? These may be respectively called the Linear and Circular methods.

The first, it is admitted on all hands, is essentially artificial and can never succeed in placing the most nearly related objects of creation in juxta position, thus, to some extent, virtually admitting the existence of a circular one and its superiority as being the more natural of the two. Necessity, therefore, not choice constrains its continued employment, rather as providing a convenient kind of cabinet or store room in which to store our daily accumulating facts, in an easily accessible form, to have them in readiness for use so soon as a more natural arrangement is discovered, than as affording such an arrangement itself.

The supporters of the circular method claim for it a higher degree of perfec- tion, that of really furnishing a clue to THE Natural System, and apparently with much reason on their side. This method assumes that nature has systematically arranged all her creations in a series of circular groups, each intimately united to