Il8 THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



nomena of life and has thereby not infrequently acquired the character of 

 merely a collector's hobby. 



In fact, this seems to have been the fate which threatened biology as a 

 whole during the era at present under discussion; that it did not actually do 

 so is due to a large extent to the fact that contemporaneously with Linn^us 

 there was another scientist at work who was aiming at leading science into 

 a direction entirely different from his, and who, at any rate partially, suc- 

 ceeded in his efforts. This man was Buffon. 



