Chap, ii.] from Cesalpino to Linnaeus. r^ 



to Darwin's time ; if in the above sentence we substitute the 

 word idea for that of substance, and the two expressions have 

 much the same meaning in the Aristotelian and Platonic view 

 of nature, we recognise the modern predarwinian doctrine, that 

 species, genera, and families represent ' ideam quandam ' and 

 1 quoddam supranaturale.' 



Pursuing his deductions, Cesalpino next shows, that the most 

 important divisions, those of woody plants and herbs, must be 

 maintained in accordance with the most important function of 

 vegetation, that of drawing up the food through root and shoot ; 

 this division passed from the first and later on up to the time 

 of Jung for an unassailable dogma, to which science simply 

 had to conform. The second great function of plants is the 

 producing their like, and this is effected by the parts of fructi- 

 fication. Though these parts are only found in the more perfect 

 forms, yet the subdivisions (' posteriora genera ') must be derived 

 in both trees and herbs from likeness and unlikeness in the fructi- 

 fication. And thus Cesalpino was led, not by induction but by 

 the deductive path of pure Aristotelian philosophy, to the con- 

 clusion, that the principles of a natural classification are to be 

 drawn from the organs of fructification ; for which conclusion 

 Linnaeus declared him to be the first of systematists, while he 

 thought de l'Obel and Kaspar Bauhin, who founded their 

 arrangements on the habit only, scarcely deserving of notice. 



It appears, then, that Cesalpino obtained the subdivisions 

 which he founded on the organs of fructification from a priori 

 views of the comparative value of organs, such as run through 

 all Aristotelian philosophy. Of much interesting matter in the 

 remainder of his introduction we must mention only that he 

 makes the highest product of plants to be the fructification, of 

 animals sense and movement, of man the intellect ; and because 

 the latter stands in need of no special bodily instruments, there 

 is no specific difference in men, and therefore only one species 

 of man. 



In his 14th chapter he gives in broad outline a view of the 



