LINNAEUS 67 



system of nomenclature, both in botany and zoology ; 

 and the grades of classification class, order, genus, 

 species, and variety are his ; and his great work, the 

 Systema Naturse (1735), which passed through twelve 

 editions in his lifetime, forms the starting-point of modern 

 taxonomy. 



Linnaeus was a non-evolutionist ; he firmly believed 

 in the fixity of species. He was a synthetic genius who 

 gathered all that was best in the work of the systema- 

 tists from Cesalpino to Tournefort, and improved it. He 

 was pre-eminently a describer and systematist, always 

 classifying, co-ordinating, and subordinating. 



In Linnaeus 1 time the " best botanist was he who 

 kiiew the most plants," however little of each ; and even 

 Linnaeus himself was not abreast of the times in which 

 he lived in matters of physiology. He contented himself 

 in collecting, classifying, and naming ; but as Jean Jacques 

 Rousseau says, in his Dictionnaire de Botanique : " J'ai 

 toujours cru qui on pourrait etre un tres grande botaniste 

 sans connaltre un seul plante par son nom." Times have 

 altered since Linnaeus' day, and now the student of botany 

 masters thoroughly the principal types of the vegetable 

 kingdom. 



" The greatest and most lasting service which Linnaeus 

 rendered both to botany and zoology lies in the cer- 

 tainty and precision which he introduced into the art of 

 describing": but for more than a hundred years after 



