LINN^US AS A ZOOLOGIST. 

 By Dr. William H. Dall. 



I HAVE been asked to make a few remarks on the relations 

 of Linnaeus to zoology. After the comprehensive addresses to 

 which we have listened, you would be well within your rights 

 if you complained that a review of the systems and conceptions 

 for zoology, entertained by Linnaeus, was, on the present occa- 

 sion, inopportune. 



I shall attempt nothing so ambitious, or I might almost say, 

 for a public address, so tedious. 



Viewed in a broad way, the services of Linnaeus to zoology 

 were of several kinds. 



The first and greatest, though at the time of its conception 

 regarded as relatively unimportant, was the invention of what 

 has long been known as the binomial or Linnaean system of 

 nomenclature. The conception of a permanent name for each 

 type of organized beings, tliereby giving to the naturalist a con- 

 cise method of indicating each unit of the S3'stem, was so great 

 an advance on any previous method of handling zoological 

 species that it amounted to a complete revolution in methods ; 

 comparable to that for the arithmetical sciences, which followed 

 the adoption of the decimal Arabic symbols in place of the 

 clumsy Roman notation of numerals. 



That previous zoologists, like Rumphius, had more or less in- 

 advertently approximated to this system at times, while giving 

 names to animals, does not diminish the credit due to Linnajus 

 for erecting the method into a definite system emphasizing the 

 principles of permanency and priority, and elaborating its 

 details. 



The second service was that of holding up the animated cre- 

 ation as an interrelated whole. This grasp of the subject would 

 be impossible to a naturalist of the present day, were the multi- 

 tudinous units of the animal kingdom now known, presented to 

 him in the chaotic state in which Linnajus found the little micro- 



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