The part of the work under criticism is a mere series of definitions, illustrated in a highly unsuccessful manner, and frequently losing sight of the requirement that a definition must include the whole of the thing defined and nothing else. It is very naive to say: “All organic matter containing a green coloring matter called chlorophyl, belongs to the vegetable kingdom,” without directly stating that no other class does, which statement would leave out the fungi, a part of the definition of which is that they contain no such matter. To define Morphology as treating--“Of the organs of plants and their relations to each other,” is not to define it at all, as that would include the whole of Organography, and does not even exclude Physiology, except by virtue of the author’s preceding clause. Systematic botany, defined as “That division which treats of the arrangement and classification of plants,” does not suggest the vital characteristics of that subject. It would be more philosophical to refer to the distinctive characteristics of Phanerogams as the manner in which the embryo is produced within a true seed, than to intimate that the embryo is entirely foreign to cryptogamic reproduction. These definitions, taken from less than two pages of matter, indicate to our mind a lack of the expenditure of time requisite to bring forth a set of new definitions more perfectly in accord with the fullest knowledge of to-day than any list which has yet appeared; and yet when the instruction given in a new text-book is chiefly limited to definitions, that is the very least that should have been attempted. Some of the morphological definitions are actually at variance with accurate descriptive usage, as that of primary and secondary roots, duration, etc. To call a stem an “axis” and a root an “axis” of a different kind, is to perpetuate a term at the expense of all regard for that accuracy which is the most important element of scientific language. Such subjects as venation are of prime importance to the pharmacist, and so far from restricting the teachings to several of the more important terms presented in ordinary text-books on botany, the classification should be elaborated in its fullest details. Compare the definition of classes, as “Plants resembling one another in some grand leading feature,” and of orders or families, as “Plants that very closely resemble each other in some leading particular,” with the clear presentation of ranks in class characteristics, given by Agassiz a generation ago, and which should, if anything, have been improved upon in the light of modern knowledge and perfected usage. The subject of nomenclature, the recent agitation of which has done more to expose and shatter erroneous practices in scientific thought and custom than any other influence, and whose correct apprehension is the very corner-stone of pharmacopœial definition, we do not see anywhere treated.