Xl6 THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



taire^ likewise ruminated over the righteousness governing the cosmic 

 process. And in this, too, Linnjeus perceived the divine guidance that he so 

 earnestly sought in natural phenomena. He was an optimist all through — 

 one of the few happy beings who could see harmony everywhere because they 

 have had such a harmonious disposition themselves. He regarded his life's 

 work with a mixture of naive self-satisfaction and humble gratitude to the 

 Almighty, under whose guidance he was always conscious of living. And he 

 may well have been satisfied, for in the science he so faithfully served, few 

 have exercised so great an influence as he. 



Pupils of Linnceus 

 It has been pointed out above that Linnaeus possessed an extraordinary 

 power of gathering pupils round him and interesting them in facts and ideas 

 in the science he represented. Naturally they were for the most part Swedes, 

 but a number of foreigners also came to hear him. His Swedish pupils, after 

 receiving their education, were generally sent to various foreign countries 

 in order to make collections and to describe the places they visited. Linnasus 

 had drawn up for them special instructions, which might serve equally well 

 today as a guide for research-workers in a foreign country. These pupils were 

 travellers and collectors; as a general rule, they made no independent dis- 

 coveries. Several of them fell the victims of hardship and disease, some ob- 

 tained distinguished appointments abroad, and others returned home. As 

 examples of these collectors may be mentioned F. Hasselqvist, who travelled 

 for three years in the East and died in Smyrna in 1751, and P. Lofling, whom 

 Linnasus called his most beloved pupil and who, on the invitation of the 

 Spanish Government, worked first on the Pyrenean peninsula and then in 

 South America, where he died in 1757. Further, Per Kalm (1716-79), the 

 first biologist in Finland to work independently, who in the course of a 

 three years' sojourn in North America made valuable contributions to that 

 country's natural history and national economy, and who afterwards acted 

 as professor of economics at Abo, strove incessantly by the application of 

 natural science to practical life to further the material development of his 

 country. Kalm's fellow-countryman Peter Forskal (i73x-63) first studied 



2 Voltaire, it will be remembered, after the terrible earthquake that took place in Lisbon 

 in 1755, wrote a poem in which he asks Providence of what those innocent men were guilty 

 who perished in it. Linnaeus takes up the same question; he consoles himself with the considera- 

 tion of the many innocent people whom the Inquisition had burnt at the stake in that city and 

 recalls that the earthquake took place on All Saints' Day — the same day on which the autos- 

 da-fe used to be held. A genuine Old Testament-like idea; the city had sinned and was punished 

 accordingly. Undeniably more attractive are some of the innumerable examples of Nemesis 

 which Linnaeus cites from private life, such as the story of the lady who struck her servant for 

 having fallen downstairs and dropped a precious china bowl; the same evening the lady herself 

 fell down the same stairs and broke her leg. Generally speaking, Linnxus possessed a strongly 

 democratic turn of mind, a lively sympathy for the poor and oppressed. 



