Chapter 5. Classifying
▣ Use of optical instruments
Main purpose of the optical instruments such as a microscope was not to examine objects which couldn't be accessed through naked eyes, but to go beyond the frontiers of the fundamental domain of visibility.
▣ a manner that excludes all botanic uncertainty
Articulating each plant's characteristic via their geometrical figures in terms of structure.
→ What an observer describe is what a listener recognize.
"By the structure of a plant's parts we mean the composition and arrangement of the pieces that make up its body."(134)
number, magnitude described by quantitative terms
forms, arrangement described by identification with geometrical figures or by analogies that must all be of the utmost clarity
▣ The epistemological precedence
Botany enjoyed it much more than Zoology, for the former dealt with many constituent visible organs and perceptible variables. Botany was studied within a taxonomic area of visibility.
▣ Cuvier's iconoclastic gesture - he broke glass jars of the Museum and dissect the all the forms of animal visibility which the glass jars contained for centuries.
This was a mutation in the natural dimension of Western culture.
historical knowledge of the visible vs. philosophical knowledge of the invisible
▣ dividing kingdoms into several families by striking relation
▣ No hierarchy in every part of individual plants.
Each organ exists for combination.
▣ Basic concept of evolutionism
There will be a steady progress of all the species on the earth toward a superior perfection. And all species lend their previous position to the species inferior to them.
▣ Reconsidering species of Bizarre forms
Even though they appear strange to us and give rise to abomination, they are not breaking or intervening the order of things but serve as a hinge between the undeveloped and the developed.