LINN.I^US AS AN EVOLUTIONIST 25 



recent species by hybridization." My own impression is that few 

 if any of the plants thought by Linnocus to be hybrids are at all of that 

 origin, according to the views of modern botanists, but rather, for the 

 most part at least perfectly distinct and genuine species. But what 

 I have herein, I think, clearly shown is, not only that Linnaeus accepted 

 and admitted to his books, as species, forms he thought of as devel- 

 oped from other species, not by any crossing, but through mere environ- 

 ment — natural environment in some instances, artificial in others. 

 And this bent of his mind was so strong that he could scarcely admit 

 two m mbers of a genus to be specifically distinct if found to occur 

 always under the same physical conditions. Again: while it is gen- 

 erous to allow to the great nature student the eleven years between 

 1751 and 1762 in which to have changed his views a little as to the 

 fixity of all species, the simple fact is that nowhere were the views set 

 forth in the Philosophia Botanica of 175 1 more squarely contradicted 

 than in the Species Plantarum of 1753. There were two years inter- 

 vening between the dates on the respective titles; but most likely he 

 was engaged in writing the works, at least in part, simultaneously. 

 But the great man was writing and publishing as other men of genius 

 had done before him, under environment. 



In a letter written by Linnaeus as early as 1747, addressed to his 

 most intimate and trusted friend, J. G. Gmelin, author of the Flora 

 Sibirica, he gives confidential expression to the restraints under which 

 he feels that he is obliged to write on matters that impinge upon the 

 domain of theology; to his unwillingness to face the disapproval of 

 the Lutheran and orthodox ecclesiastics who, in his day, ruled the 

 destinies of all seats of learning in Sweden. He says to Gmelin: 



You disapprove my having located Man among the Anthropomorphi- 

 But man knows himself. Now we may, perhaps, give up those words. 

 It matters little to me what name we use; but I demand of you, and of 

 the whole world, that you show me a generic character — one that is accord- 

 ing to generally accepted principles of classification — by which to distin- 

 guish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none. I 

 wish somebody would indicate one to me. But, if I had called man an 

 ape, or vice versa, I should have fallen under the ban of all the ecclesiastics. 

 It may be that as a naturalist I ought to have done so.^^ 



" Osbom, From the Greeks to Darwin, p. 129. 



"This, though written as we have said in 1747, was never pubhshed until 

 1861. The original Latin text of the letter occurs in " JoannisGeorgii Gme- 



