REFORM OF LINNAEUS. 401 



particulars, and of previous classifications, the learner is dependent 

 upon the teacher more completely, and for a longer time than in other 

 subjects of speculation : he cannot so soon or so easily cast off the aid 

 and influence of the master, to pursue reasonings and hypotheses of his 

 own. "Whatever the cause may be, the fact is, that the reputation and 

 authority of Linnaeus, in the latter part of his life, were immense. He 

 enjoyed also royal favor, for the King and Queen of Sweden were both 

 fond of natural history. In 17.03, Linnaeus received from the hand of 

 his sovereign the knighthood of the Polar Star, an honor which had 

 never before been conferred for literary merit; and in 1756, was 

 raised to the rank of Swedish nobility by the title of VonLinne; and 

 this distinction was confirmed by the Diefr in 1762. He lived, honored 

 and courted, to the age of seventy-one; and in 1778 was buried in 

 the cathedral of Upsal, with many testimonials of public respect and 

 veneration. 



De Candolle' assigns, as the causes of the successes of the Linnaean 

 system, the specific names, the characteristic phrase, the fixation 

 of descriptive language, the distinction of varieties and species, the 

 extension of the method to all the kingdoms of nature, and the prac- 

 tice of introducing into it the species most recently discovered. This 

 last course Linnaeus constantly pursued ; thus making his works the 

 most valuable for matter, as they were the most convenient in form. 

 The general diffusion of his methods over Europe may be dated, perhaps, 

 a few years after 1760, when the tenth and the succeeding editions of 

 the Systema Naturae, were in circulation, professing to include every 

 species of organized beings. But his pupils and correspondents effected 

 no less than his books, in giving currency to his system. In Germany, 2 ' 

 it was defended by Ludwig, Gesner, Fabricius. But Haller, whose 

 reputation in physiology was as great as that of Linnaeus in methodology, 

 rejected it as too merely artificial. In France, it did not make any 

 rapid or extensive progress : the best French botanists were at this 

 time occupied with the solution of the great problem of the construction 

 of a Natural Method. And though the rhetorician Rousseau charmed, 

 we may suppose, with the elegant precision of the Philosophia Bota- 

 nica, declared it to be the most philosophical work he had ever read 

 in his life, Buffon and Andanson, describers and philosophers of a more 

 ambitious school, felt a repugnance to the rigorous rules, and limited, 

 but finished, undertakings of the Swedish naturalist. To resist hi? 



1 Theor. El em. p. 40. 21 Sprengel, u. '244. 



VOL. II. 26. 



