CLASSIFICATORY SCIENCES.
HISTORY
OF
SYSTEMATIC BOTANY AND ZOOLOGY.
. . . . . Vatem aspicies quæ rupe sub altâ
Fata canit, foliisque notas et nomina mandat.
Quæcunque in foliis descripsit carmina virgo
Digerit in numerum atque antro seclusa relinquit
Illa manent immorta locis neque ab ordine cedunt.
Virgil. Æn. iii. 443.
Behold the Sibyl!—Her who weaves a long,
A tangled, full, yet sweetly flowing song.
Wondrous her skill; for leaf on leaf she frames
Unerring symbols and enduring names;
And as her nicely measured line she binds,
For leaf on leaf a fitting place she finds;
Their place once found, no more the leaves depart,
But fixed rest:—such is her magic art.
INTRODUCTION.
WE now arrive at that study which offers the most copious and complete example of the sciences of classification, I mean Botany. And in this case, we have before us a branch of knowledge of which we may say, more properly than of any of the sciences which we have reviewed since Astronomy, that it has been constantly advancing, more or less rapidly, from the infancy of the human race to the present day. One of the reasons of this resemblance in the fortunes of two studies so widely dissimilar, is to be found in a simplicity of principle which they have in common; the ideas of Likeness and Difference, on which the knowledge of plants depends, are, like the ideas of Space and Time, which are the foundation of astronomy, readily apprehended with clearness and precision, even without any peculiar culture of the intellect. But another reason why, in the history of Botany, as in that of Astronomy, the progress of knowledge forms an unbroken line from the earliest times, is precisely the great difference of the kind of knowledge which has been attained in the two cases. In Astronomy, the discovery of general truths began at an early period of civilization; in Botany, it has hardly yet begun; and thus, in each of these departments of study, the lore of the ancient is homogeneous with that of the modern times, though in the one case it is science, in the other, the absence of science, which pervades all ages. The resemblance of the form of their history arises from the diversity of their materials.