Volume 1

Memoirs of the life of Thomas Beddoes, M.D. with an analytical account of his writings / By John Edmonds Stock.

  • John Edmonds Stock
Date:
1811
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoirs of the life of Thomas Beddoes, M.D. with an analytical account of his writings / By John Edmonds Stock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    436/512 page 2
    To supply marks, by which the object defined may be readily compared with the definition, may, perhaps, be thought only a secondary requisite ; yet, without it, accuracy would be of no avail. The study of names, is always irksome: nor is itany otherwise profitable, than as it leads to further advances. He, there- fore, who shall neglect to allure the student by the prospect of an easy and speedy initiation, may justly be censured as an unskilful Nomenclator. If this sug- gestion of common sense, needed the sanction of authority, that may easily be added. ‘Note,’ observes one of the first among Naturalists, [ Ray] <‘obvie sint, manifeste, et cuilibet facilé observabiles. Nam cum methodi usus preci- puus sit rudes et tyrones in stirpium cognitionem compendio absque tedio et difficultate inducere, non oportet ejusmodi notas proponere, que attentum et sollicitum requirynt spectatorem.”’ Conciseness. contributes so much to perspicuity, that it deserves to be men- tioned apart. How much the necessary evil of bestowing such attention upon the grammar of science, would be alleviated, if the essential character of every object could be clearly pointed out, will be readily conceived. And if any one should doubt, let him compare the obvious and simple characteristic mark of some of the Linnean Genera, such as the Crowfoot,with the tedious Nomencla- ture of Adanson’s Families. .-The Definition of the Leguminous Plants, which constitute the 43d Family, of this writer, is spread through eleven pages ; nor does it seem possible, notwithstanding the natural loquacity of a Frenchman, to, contract the character much, without departing altogether from the prinei- ples upon which he proceeds, -- at aan It were further to be wished, that in all scientific arrangement, the Order of Nature could be preserved, and that we might be led from the Cedar of the mountain, through the shrubby and herbaceous Plants to the remotest limits of vegetable life, Or, to speak in what I consider as more proper terms, that those Individuals which resemble each other in their general nature, and most strik- ing. qualities, should be placed together. I prefer this mode of expression, because I am very far from believing in what has been so strongly asserted, and so feebly attempted to be proved, in a Chain of Beings, descending in regular gradation, either from Infinite Perfection ; or from the highest and noblest of terrestrial Beings, down to nothing.» However this may be, Linneus has made no approach to a Natural Order ; for 1 cannot consider his Fragments in this hight; in which I do not find that he has given any definitions of the Divisions which he considered as natural, or offered any thing but a vague and indeter- minate list of Names. In his System, like Plants are separated, and unlike put together. I believe, that.im most of the Classes and Orders, we may find an a Lamarck. b ‘his speculation being foreign to the present question, I refer to De Luc’s Letters, though I cannot quote the passage; and more especially, to Dr. Joknson’s Criticism on Jenyns’s * Origin of Evil ;” which is inserted among his Fugitive Pieces.
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