128 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



To do justice, however, to the discernment of Linnaeus, 

 should be added that he was fully aware of the artificial 

 nature of his classification. As Kerner has said: "It is not 

 the fault of this accomplished and renowned naturalist if a 

 greater importance were attached to his system than he him- 

 self ever intended. Linnaeus never regarded his twenty-four 

 classes as real and natural divisions of the vegetal le kingdom, 

 and specifically says so; it was constructed for convenience of 

 reference and identification of species. A real natural system, 

 founded on the true affinities of plants as indicated by the 

 structural characters,he regarded as the highest aim of botan- 

 ical endeavor. He never completed a natural system, leaving 

 only a fragment (published in 1738)." 



Terseness of Descriptions. — His descriptions were marked 

 by extreme brevity, but by great clearness. This is a second 

 feature of his work. In giving the diagnosis of a form he 

 was very terse. He did not employ fully formed sentences 

 containing a verb, but words concisely put together so as to 

 bring out the chief things he wished to emphasize. As an 

 illustration of this, we may take his characterization of the 

 forest rose, "Rosa sylvestris vulgaris, flore odorata incarnato" 

 The common rose of the forest with a flesh-colored, sweet- 

 smelling flower. In thus fixing the attention upon essential 

 .points he got rid of verbiage, a step that was of very great 

 importance. 



His Idea of Species. — A third feature of his work was 

 that of emphasizing the idea of species. In this he built 

 upon the work of Ray. We have already seen that Ray 

 was the first to define species and to bring the conception 

 into natural history. Ray had spoken of the variability of 

 species, but Linnaeus, in his earlier publications, declared 

 that they were constant and invariable. His conception of a 

 species was that of individuals born from similar parents. 

 It was assumed that at the original stocking of the earth, one 



