iillWEAlS" SOCIETY OP LONDOK. 1 9 



Botany a fixed aud coraj)lete terminology, and influenced tlie 

 science of Zoology also. Its far-seeing author also utilized the 

 principle upon which the work was founded in Materia Medica, 

 iii classifying diseases, and in mineralogy. 



It is very true that men labour and others enter into their 

 labours ; aud in exemplification of this old saw one might ask 

 how many of us, when, we use the terms incident to the study of 

 forms, remember that our terminology has descended from the 

 clear-headed Linuisus. The aptitude of most of the common 

 botanical terms testifies to the brightness of conception, the judi- 

 cious taste, and tlie linguistic power of the great Swede. 



Some naturalists imagine that a scientific terminology can be 

 readily produced, and that it does not infer much positive know- 

 ledge. But this is a very great mistake. The accurate and vast 

 terminology of Linnaeus testifies to his practical knowledge of 

 an enormous number of plants and animals, the details of which 

 he must have studied carefully. 



Every experienced naturalist is aware that a fixed character, 

 to be good for anything, can only be the result of many careful 

 observations. It is, in fact, a scientific discovery ; and the appro- 

 priate technical term being given, it is capable of being used in. 

 inductive reasoning. 



The language of Botany was reformed and recreated by 

 Linnaeus, who thus gave a familiar tongue to all his followers, 

 which, once attained, leads readily to the comprehension of any 

 descriptive and classifieatory systems. 



The Tundamenta Botanica' gives the scientific terminology, 

 and the ' Philosophia Botanica ' carries its own description — iti 

 qua explicantiir fundament a botanica. This work is totally posi- 

 tive, and is a wonderful record of the explanation of terms with 

 very little of what Lamarck would have called philosophy. Yet 

 there is philosophy in the book without metaphysics, and it is pos- 

 sible to glean therefrom the ideas of Linnaeus upon the great 

 questions which began anxiously to be thought about towards 

 the close of the century which the great naturalist brightened. 



The last-mentioned work deals, moreover, with another subject, 

 which, although it difters from terminology aud its explanation, 

 is closely allied and dependent. It refers to Linnaeus's reform 

 of botauical nomenclature. The old plan of giving a distinct 

 name to pLmts for purposes of recognition had long given way 

 to the use of the genus and an ill- defined specific phrase. The 

 phrase with a multitude of ablatives became really a short specific 

 diaL^uosis which the botanist had to commit to memory. Haller 

 had tried the numerical method, and had species I., II., III., 

 &c. ; but Linnaeus, impressed with what he called the circum- 

 locution, desired to call every herb by a single trivial specific 

 name. He did not, however, do this at once. 



There was one great characteristic of Linnaeus, and it was 

 the idea of rational sequence which pervaded his constant labours. 

 He was never hurried ; aud all his reforms were progressive, 



c2' 



