352 LINNiEUS. 



The works they abuse shine brighter the more 

 strictly they are scrutinized, and will certainly be 

 read with delight by men in every age who are 

 best qualified to appreciate their value. Your cen- 

 sors, when duly weighed themselves, seem to have 

 acquired what they know by application rather than 

 by any great powers of mind ; and they make but 

 a poor figure, with all that they can find to say, 

 when they enter into a controversy with a man 

 whose learning has received its last polish from ge- 

 nius. Nor are you, my excellent friend, unsup- 

 ported in the contest ; for you are surrounded by 

 all who have entered on the same studies at the im- 

 pulse of genius, or under the auspices of Minerva, 

 and whose industry has gradually improved, sharp- 

 ened, and given the last finish to the powers of their 

 understanding. These stand ready armed for the 

 battle in your defence. They will easily put to 

 flight the herd of plodding labourers ; for nature 

 can certainly do much more without learning, than 

 learning without nature. 



<^' If your adversaries and detractors had candidly 

 pointed out the disputable, inconvenient, or faulty 

 parts of your system, for your better consideration 

 and revision, I have no doubt that they would now 

 have found in you a friend and patron, instead of 

 an enemy and conqueror. But they were excited 

 by an envious malignity, and a depraved appetite 

 for controversy, to write without judgment or ge- 

 nius, and to blame without candour or liberality. 

 Not that I pretend to say, that your system is al- 

 ready brought to the supreme point of perfection. 

 That would indeed be a foolish assertion, which 

 your better judgment would at once reject as mere 



