CAROLUS LINKfflUS 



LINEAGE AND CHILDHOOD OF LINN^US 



HE personality of Linnaeus and his 

 luminous career as a scientific man 

 make a topic much too large to 

 be presented even in mere outline 

 within the limits of an hour. If this were 

 an assemblage of botanists exclusively, still 

 would the time be too short for the worthy 

 consideration, not only of Linnaeus as a 

 botanist in general, but of his services to any 

 one only of the several departments of the 

 science which it is his glory greatly to have 

 advanced. But then a botanist, a very great 

 botanist, he was also much more than that. 

 I have a fancy it may be more and deeper 

 than a fancy that a great man in whatsoever 

 profession, a man of power in any branch of 

 science, is greater than the science to which 

 he devotes himself; that he himself personally 

 is of more moment, and ought to be of deeper 

 interest than his science; yes, than all the 

 sciences that are or ever shall be. 



If we could in thought divest Linnseus of 

 his systematic botany and zoology, we should 



(7) 



