SIR CHARLES LLWV.IS. 23 



part of some much rancour and personal antipathy 

 displayed. He promulgated his theories, to his 

 credit be it said, without intentionally wounding 

 the feelings of others; but this did not prevent him 

 from making a very vigorous defence of his 

 system when there was need. Botanists twice his 

 age were somewhat chagrined that one so young 

 should thus boldly seek to overthrow the methods 

 which they had all adopted for so many years. 



Many of his opponents were men of great repu- 

 tation, and in some cases of high social standing. 

 One of these wrote of him as follows : " Linnaeus, a 

 pupil and friend of Baron Haller, with whom he was 

 well acquainted by several years of domestic connec- 

 tion, had in the course of a few years pulled 

 down the whole structure of botany, that he might 

 erect on the ruins of his predecessors his own 

 system: he rejected everything foreign to his own 

 precepts, and sent the greatest botanists into a 

 school, where they were first to learn the signification 

 of the names he had created and the laws of his 

 system. Haller, with placid eye, saw this might}' 

 dictator step forth; he was not insensible of the 

 necessity of a reform, but saw at the same time, 

 that he went too far. He followed Linnaeus wherever 

 he thought the truth was his guide, but where the 

 latter only dealt in hypotheses, he there quitted him." 



It is impossible to follow all that was said against 

 Linnaeus at this time; but in his system thus being 

 severely criticised and examined it only made its 

 ultimate success the more assured. 



