88 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



the mammals he sought for natural groupings, and endeavored to find the 

 hidden bonds of structural affinity as indicated by comparative anatomy, 

 although he did not recognize that the real basis of affinity is to be found in 

 kinship of evolution from similar ancestral forms. 



His scientific independence and genius were indicated especially by his 

 inclusion of man with the apes and monkeys in the order Primates. It was 

 a mark of genius that Linnaeus felt the force of the anatomical likeness of 

 man to his lower relatives and that he had the courage to definitely ally him 

 with them from a strictly zoological view-point. This is the very starting- 

 point of all modern philosophy, that man is linked by ties of blood kinship 

 to the whole organic world. 



That Linnaeus's system is based in part on adaptive resemblances or 

 analogies, rather than on structural affinities or homologies, is not surprising, 

 because it is only recently that naturalists have been able to distinguish 

 analogies from homologies. 



Henry Fairfield Osborn, Delegate. 



The Smithsonian Institution of Washington, D.O. 



The Smithsonian Institution, uniting with the New York Academy of 

 Sciences in its appreciation of Carl von Linne, cordially accepts its invitation 

 to participate in exercises commemorative of the two hundredth anniversar}' 

 of the birth of the great Swedish naturalist. 



The Smithsonian Institution, in response to the invitation to take part in 

 the Academy's celebration of the bicentenary by an appreciative record of 

 the work of von Linn6, needs only to recall the great impulse which he gave 

 to natural science by his industry and methods, and the facility for expression 

 of facts by his binomial system of nomenclature. But the philosophic 

 generalization which was recorded in the name of Mammalia may be espe- 

 cially recalled as the greatest morphological triumph of the Linnsean era. 



Chas. D. Walcott, Secretari/. 



The Biological Society of Washington, Washington, D.C. 



The Biological Society of Washington acknowledges with pleasure the 

 invitation of the New York Academy of Sciences to take part in its cele- 

 bration of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Carl von Linn6, 

 and is glad to unite in paying fitting tribute to the memory of the man who 

 is justly regarded as the father of the biological sciences. 



