68 LINNMUS AS A ZOOLOGIST 



definite system emphasizing the principles 

 of permanency and priority, and elaborating 

 its details. 



The second service was that of holding up 

 the animated creation as an interrelated whole. 

 This grasp of the subject would be impossible 

 to a naturalist of the present day were the 

 multitudinous units of the animal kingdom now 

 known presented to him in the chaotic state 

 in which Linnaeus found the little microcosm 

 which he had to deal with. The progress, by 

 the Linnaaan methods, since his time, has been 

 so great; anatomical, ecological and embryo- 

 logical discoveries have so illuminated the 

 subject; that we are prone to look with amuse- 

 ment on the crude classification which alone 

 in his time was possible, without appreciating 

 the instances it contains of really astonishing 

 insight into the true relation of organized 

 beings. 



It is only when we compare the Linnsean 

 classification with the contemporaneous ab- 

 surdities of such antagonists as Jacobus Theo- 

 dorus Klein, who in bewigged pomposity stares 

 at us from the frontispiece of his ridiculous 

 "Tentamen," that we can appreciate the 

 quality of the genius of the immortal Swede. 



A third manner, and by no means the 



