394 HISTORY OF BOTA1SJ*. 



posing a trivial name without a sufficient specific distinction, lest the 

 science should fall into its former barbarism." 



It cannot be doubted, that the general reception of these trivial 

 names of Linnaeus, as the current language among botanists, was due, 

 in a very great degree, to the knowledge, care, and skill with which 

 his characters, both of genera and of species, were constructed. The 

 rigorous rules of selection and expression which are proposed in the 

 Fundamenta Botanica and Critica Botanica, he himself conformed to ; 

 and this scrupulosity was employed upon the results of immense 

 labor. " In order that I might make myself acquainted with the 

 species of plants," he says, in the preface to his work iipon them, " I 

 have explored the Alps of Lapland, the whole of Sweden, a part oi 

 Norway, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, England, France : I have ex- 

 amined the Botanical Gardens of Paris, Oxford, Chelsea, Harlecamp, 

 Leyden, Utrecht, Amsterdam, TJpsal, and others : I have turned 

 over the Herbals of Burser, Hermann, Clifford, Burmann, Olden- 

 land, Gronovius, Royer, Sloane, Sherard, Bobart, Miller, Tournefort, 

 Vaillant, Jussieu, Surien, Beck, Brown, <fcc. : my dear disciples have 

 gone to distant lands, and sent me plants from thence ; Kerlen 

 to Canada, Hasselquist to Egypt, Asbech to China, Toren to Surat, 

 Solander to England, Alstroemer to Southern Europe, Martin to Spitz- 

 bergen, Pontin to Malabar, Koehler to Italy, Forskahl to the East, 

 Logfling to Spain, Montin to Lapland : my botanical friends have sent 

 me many seeds and dried plants from various countries : Lagerstrbm 

 many from the East Indies ; Gronovius most of the Virginian ; Gmelin 

 all the Siberian; Burmann those of the Cape." And in consistency 

 with this habit of immense collection of materials, is his maxim, 11 that 

 " a person is a better botanist in proportion as he knows more species." 

 It will easily be seen that this maxim, like Newton's declaration that 

 discovery requires patient thought alone, refers only to the exertions 

 of which the man of genius is conscious ; and leaves out of sight his 

 peculiar endowments, which he does not see because they are part of 

 his power of vision. With the taste for symmetry which dictated the 

 Critica Botanica, and the talent for classification which appears in the 

 Genera Plantarum, and the Systema Naturae, a person must un- 

 doubtedly rise to higher steps of classificatory knowledge and skill, as 

 he became acquainted with a greater number of facts. 



The acknowledged superiority of Linnsens in the knowledge of the 



11 Phil. Bot. 259. 



