186 MONS. FEE ON THE NOMEKCLATtTBE 



with geometry, physics, and rural economy, works doubtless of 

 some importance, as they obtained for him admission into the 

 Academy of Sciences as early as 1733 ? The printing of BufFon's 

 'Histoire Naturelle' extended from 1749 to 1767, and it was 

 during this interval that the reputation of Buffon was diffused 

 and popularized. If this great man was known in Sweden prior 

 to this epoch, it was not by Linnaeus. Eevenge can only be taken 

 for an actual injury, and Linnaeus had no reason to complain of 

 attacks which had never taken place. "We may here invoke a 

 material impossibility — a sort of alibi. It is a petty calumny 

 directed at one and the same time against two great names. We 

 may consequently say with Richter (Opera Omnia Linneana, 

 1836), "Nomen iniquamente a Linnaeo in Bufoniam (pro Buffonia) 

 mutatum esse, probent ii qui narrant." 



Linnaeus had his adversaries, and what man of genius has not ? 

 But in his writings we should seek in vain for traces of ill-temper. 

 He had an elevated tone of thought, an excellent heart, and great 

 dignity of character. He was, if I may be pardoned the expres- 

 sion, a very good great man. Controversy was his antipathy ; he 

 thought, not without reason, that his time was better employed in 

 improving former publications and preparing new ones ; and this 

 was the wisest mode of reply. He not only disliked, but he feared, 

 scientific polemics. The proofs of this assertion are as numerous 

 as they are convincing. He answered neither Heister, nor 

 Siegesbeck, nor Browallius, nor any other opponent. " My old 

 friend Ludwig," he writes to Haller, " wishes to attack me, and I 

 shall be easily conquered, for I lay down my arms beforehand. 

 I will not defend myself." Having reason to complain of Haller, 

 who had greatly ill-used him, he wrote thus in his ' Flora Zey- 

 lanica ' : — " In Grermania inter Helvetos eminet alter Boerhaavius 

 HaUerus. CI. Hallerum esse mortalium omnium laboriosissimum, 

 inque Theoria Medica et Anatomia hodie summum, norunt omnes. 

 In Botanicis insuper plures investigavit et descripsit plantas 

 quam uUus facile alius. Inique itaque dixere nonnulli me minus 

 mite de viro optimo scripsisse ; et sciant velim me ejus scripta et 

 observationes ubique magni facer e et attente volvere, cum in tota 

 Germania vix adhuc alius meliora praestiterit." 



All reformers are heated and intolerant. Linnaeus was an 

 exception ; he was mild and benevolent. It has been written, 

 and I have myself repeated it*, that he dedicated to antagonists 

 plants of an ungraceful habit, thorny, or singular in some of their 

 parts. This might possibly have been so, and there would have 

 * See my * Vie de Linne,' p. 120, et seq^. 



