CAROLUS LINNAEUS 25 



Linnaeus, was the father of natural system in 

 botany. 



It was as an inmate of Dr. Rothman's 

 household, and while preparing under his 

 direction to enter some university as a candi- 

 date for the doctorate in medicine, that a new 

 day dawned upon Linnseus's horizon in respect 

 to his botanical recreations and pursuits. The 

 botanical system of Tournefort had now been 

 before the public for some thirty years. His 

 work was the most complete and signal success 

 that ever had been, and I may almost say 

 that ever yet has been, in the field of botanical 

 authorship; because it seems to have capti- 

 vated the whole botanical world, without 

 arousing a jealous enemy, or eliciting a line 

 of adverse criticism for twenty years, save 

 only a mild protest from the gentle John Ray, 

 in England, who, clearly superior to Tourne- 

 fort as a botanist, never measured half the 

 latter's success as an immediate and popular 

 influence. Viewed without bias of prejudice, 

 and in the perspective of two centuries, 

 Tournefort's Institutes becomes the most 

 conspicuous landmark in the whole history 

 of botany. By no other one author's help 

 did the science make a stride in advance equal 

 to that made under Tournefort's influence 



