84 Artificial Systems and Terminology of [Book i. 



from which Linnaeus drew, but it would be a misapprehension 

 to see in this any depreciation of a great man ; it were to be 

 desired that all naturalists would, like Linnaeus, adopt all that is 

 good in the contributions of their predecessors, and improve or 

 adapt it as he did. Linnaeus himself has repeatedly quoted 

 the sources of his knowledge as far as they were known to 

 him, and has in many cases estimated the services of his 

 predecessors with a candour which never betrays a trace of 

 jealousy, but often displays a warm respect, as may be seen 

 especially in the short introductions to the several systems 

 given in the ' Classes Plantarum.' Linnaeus could not only 

 recognise what was good in his predecessors and occasionally 

 make use of it, but he imparted life and fruitfulness to the 

 thoughts of others by applying them as he applied his own 

 thoughts, and bringing out whatever theoretical value they pos- 

 sessed. It was evidently this freshness of life that often misled 

 his successors into believing that Linnaeus thought out and 

 discovered everything for himself. We learn to appreciate the 

 contributions of Cesalpino and his successors in the 17th 

 century, and even of Kaspar Bauhin for the first time in the 

 works of Linnaeus ; we are astonished to see the long-known 

 thoughts of these writers, which in their own place look unim- 

 portant and incomplete, fashioned by Linnaeus into a living 

 whole ; thus he was at once and in the best sense both recep- 

 tive and productive, and he might perhaps have done more for 

 the theory of the science if he had not been entangled in one 

 grave error, which was more sharply pronounced in him than 

 in his predecessors and contemporaries, that, namely, of sup- 

 posing that the highest and only worthy task of a botanist is to 

 know all species of the vegetable kingdom exactly by name. 

 Linnaeus distinctly declared that this was his view, and his 

 school in Germany and England adhered to it so firmly that 

 it established itself with the general public, who to the present 

 day consider it as a self-evident proposition that a botanist 

 exists essentially for the purpose of at once designating any 



