LINNAEUS 53 



establishment of genera and species, upon sound philo- 

 sophical principles, a firm stage to serve as a basis and 

 standing point for further progress and exploration. 

 By his accurate discrimination of genera and species he 

 really made possible the subsequent generalisations of 

 De Jussieu and De Candolle." This statement expresses 

 practically the unanimous view on Linnaeus's greatest 

 achievement. He is credited also with the establishment 

 of the binomial nomenclature, and with having, by the 

 use of a terminology largely founded on, if not borrowed 

 from, Jung, replaced the long-winded and confused 

 descriptions of the herbalists by clear and succinct 

 diagnoses. It is well to remember, however, that Linnaeus 

 did not invent the binomial nomenclature ; the germ of 

 the idea is to be found, as you have already seen, in 

 Bauhin's Pinax, and even m the Enquiry of Theophrastus. 

 Of anatomy Linnaeus knew nothing save what he 

 learnt from Grew. Adopting the crude ideas of his 

 predecessors he attempted to homologise the whorls of 

 the flower with the successive concentric regions of the 

 stem ; the cortex becomes the calyx, the bast the corolla, 

 the wood the stamens, and the pith the carpels. Sachs 

 quite correctly says that Linnaeus showed an utter 

 " incapacity for careful investigation of any object at 

 all difficult to observe." In fact Linnaeus was not an 

 investigator at all, for there is no evidence in his works 

 that he made a single discovery of the slightest import 

 ance. Linnaeus does not go to Nature and invite her to 

 tell him her secrets and then deduce from her answers 

 what her purpose is, as Hales and Grew did ; on the 

 contrary he elaborated a complex and beautifully arranged 

 and catalogued set of pigeon-holes and forced the facts 

 that Nature presented to him into these pigeon-holes, 

 whether they fitted the receptacles or not. In no aspect 

 of his work is this utterly unscientific attitude of mind 

 more clearly seen than in the famous artificial or 

 " sexual system of classification " that was adopted 



