Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 1.djvu/16

iv pulse which its beauty and simplicity communicated, calling thousands of enthusiastic votaries into the field, by whose joint labours was collected the vast mass of valuable materials of which the more philosophical natural method was constructed, leaving altogether out of consideration, the justly admired nomenclature and precision of language appropriated to the description of plants introduced by its author, the universally acknowledged father of modern Botany, Linnaeus.

Having I trust satisfactorily shown that the essential difference between the two systems lies in the tendency of the one to contract our ideas by attaching an undue value to the knowledge of species, while that of the other is to elevate and expand the mind by imparting a knowledge of and leading to the contemplation of masses, I believe I have said all that can be required in support of my preference of the natural system and of the propriety of my first determination to publish a flora of this portion of India arranged according to that method. The same reasoning equally establishes the propriety of my entering on the present work, explanatory of the principles of that system and showing its application to the grouping in masses of the knowledge which has for ages been accumulating as detached observations, but which, until thus concentrated was of difficult access and, when obtained, only applicable to the species to which it originally appertained in place of as now, by affording so many points of comparison or known quantities, enabling us to deduce useful applications, of hitherto unknown plants, simply on the ground of their structural relationship or affinity in the system of nature to others, the qualities of which are well known.

That many anomalies may positive contradictions occur in our present groups is undeniable, but it is equally certain that many of these are disappearing under the more rigid scrutiny of structural peculiarities, which have often shown, that the most striking departures from the general rule, were attributable, not to imperfections of the rule itself, but to erroneous associations of plants, either only remotely or not at all allied, in the same groups.

The objects of this work may now be briefly summed up, they are first to explain the principles of grouping plants according to their natural affinities and illustrating these by figures of species appertaining to each group : and secondly, to show by adducing a variety of examples of the fact, that, in a great majority of instances similarity of structure, or Botanical relationship, is accompanied with similarity of properties, and lastly, to prove that these premises lead to the inference that having ascertained by careful examination and comparison its nearest Botanical relatives, the properties of which are known,, we are often enabled to infer the properties of an imperfectly known plant. In addition to these more immediate objects I have endeavoured to render it a supplement to our Prodromus, by a running commentary on that work, and by the description of such new species as have come into my possession since its publication. To render the information thus embodied in these pages as easily accessible as possible, I have added a very copious index including every name and noting every page where it occurs. By this means any one is enabled with little trouble to trace a family through all the relations, whether botanical, economical or medical, in which it occurs in these pages.

How far I have succeeded in my endeavours to accomplish these objects it is not for me to determine, but I think I may safely assume that if I have failed the failure is attributable to want of judgment in the selection of my examples, and not to want of diligence in seeking for appropriate ones or of the application required in committing them to paper. My object throughout has