LINNAEUS AND THE LINNEAN CLASSIFICATION. 6 1 



perhaps no part of his zoological system which has 

 suffered less alteration at the hands of later systematists, 

 that is, as regards its broad features. 



(6) Verities. Under this head, Linnaeus included all the 

 Invertebrate Animals, with the exception of the Insects and 

 the other Articulate Animals which he included among 

 the Insects. It need hardly be said, therefore, that the 

 sixth Linnean class is a wholly unnatural and mis- 

 cellaneous assemblage of animals, most of which do not 

 at all correspond with what we should now call ' Worms.' 

 It was only to be expected that at the time of Linnaeus 

 the Vertebrate animals were much better known than 

 the Invertebrate animals, and that the insects should be 

 the best known of all the Invertebrates. Hence, it is 

 no matter of wonder that the Linnean class of Verities 

 in anything like the Linnean sense should have totally 

 disappeared in the progress of zoological science, Cuvier 

 having played the most important part in the work of 

 demolition and reconstruction. 



Upon the whole, in spite of its defects, and in spite 

 of the fact that it was largely based upon ' artificial ' 

 principles, we must concede to the Linnean classification 

 great merits. It was, in fact, as Agassiz has remarked, 

 the first essay, on a large scale, 'at grouping animals 

 together according to certain common structural char- 

 acters.' It may, however, with some confidence be 

 stated that zoology owed at least as much to Linnaeus 

 for the system of scientific nomenclature which he intro- 

 duced, as it did on the score of his classification of the 

 animal kingdom. 



Prior to the time of Linnaeus, as has been previously 



