THE RENASCENCE OF SCIENCE. 



109 



brate zoology and the revival of the idea of Evolu- 

 tion are intimately dependent on the results of the 

 work of Lamarck. In other words, the main results 

 of biology up to the early years of this century are to 

 be found in, or spring out of, the works of these men." 



Linnaeus, son . of a Lutheran pastor, born at 

 Roeshult, in Sweden, in 1707, had barely passed his 

 twenty-fifth year before laying the ground-plan of 

 the system of classification which bears his name, 

 a system which advance in knowledge has since 

 modified. Based on external resemblances, its 

 formulation was possible only to a mind intent on 

 minute and accurate detail, and less observant of 

 general principles. In brief, the work of Linnaeus 

 was constructive, not interpretative. Hence, per- 

 haps, conjoined to the theological ideas then current, 

 the reason why the larger question of the fixity of 

 species entered not into his purview. To him each 

 plant and animal retained the impress of the Creative 

 hand that had shaped it " in the beginning," and, 

 throughout his working life, he departed but slightly 

 from the plan with which he started, namely, " reck- 

 oning as many species as issued in pairs " from the 

 Almighty fiat. 



Not so Buffon, born on his father's estate in Bur- 

 gundy* in the same year as Linnaeus, whom he sur- 

 vived ten years, dying in 1788. His opinions, clash- 

 ing as they did with orthodox creeds, were given in 

 a tentative, questioning fashion, so that where eccle- 

 siastical censure fell, retreat was easier. As has been 



