Introduction to Fresh-Water Algae with an Enumeration of All the British Species

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1890 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIV CLASSIFICATION. It is a well-known practice, in all branches of natural history, to group together all the various objects which constitute each separate branch, in a systematic manner for convenience of study, and in order that the different objects, whether called species or varieties, may be quoted, or referred to under some distinctive appellation, so that something like accuracy may be arrived at. Whatever this classification, or arrangement, may be, it is to a greater or less extent artificial, and is only a means to an end. However perfect it may seem to be when constructed, or modified, depends upon its accordance with the total of knowledge available at the time of construction, but it cannot long remain perfect in detail, because knowledge is progressive, whilst systems are fixed, and are constantly in need of modification in order to keep pace with the accumulation of fact. There are some who affect to despise system or classification altogether, quite forgetting that there could be no science without it, and there are others, probably, who think that science consists solely in classification. As it is folly to think of science without system, so is it equally absurd to mistake classification for science, whereas it is simply a necessary appendage to science. Without, therefore, desiring to claim for classification a position greater than its merits, we would briefly indicate some of the features of the classification of algaa, and especially of the fresh-water species, in order that the arrangement hereafter followed may be somewhat intelligible. It will serve no useful purpose to refer back to old and crude methods, antecedent to that adopted by Professor Harvey in "Phycologia Britannica," to which that of Lindley's "Vegetable Kingd...