X ANECDOTES OF LINKffiUS. 



immediately after his return from Goettingen, saw 

 himself involved in so many theological disputes, as 

 would, perhaps, have been carried too far, had he 

 not left the field of litigation, by setting out on his 

 voyage to Arabia. 



" Linnaeus knew how to secure to himself, even 

 in his earlier days, that dominion over the three 

 reigns of Nature, which he preserved till death. 



" In mineralogy his very countrymen entered the 

 lists of contention against him. He certainly was 

 often attacked and censured with injustice ; and the 

 little inaccuracies, which will never fail to exist in 

 works of that importance, ought to have been pal- 

 liated and overlooked, on account of the other great 

 merits of their author. It is, however, an incontro- 

 vertible fact, that he first introduced systematic 

 regularity in the mineral reign. He formed the 

 classes, and determined the genera and species by 

 regular distinctive marks, which he derived from the 

 external appearance. Thus mineralogy became a 

 regular science, after it had formerly been but a 

 chaos created by the miners, who used to discrimi- 

 nate the minerals partly by practice and partly by 

 fire. Linnaeus having once left the mines, having 

 no laboratory, and being over-burdened by a multi- 

 plicity of other occupations, discontinued to exert 

 himself so much in mineralogy. His system is 

 however excellent, his hypothesis the fruit of the 

 ripest reflection, his description of the species is 

 excellent, and his observations truly important. In 



