222 Philosophy of Botany. 



for, as Goethe remarks : " The further that knowledge extends, 

 the more questions come in evidence." 



The fathers of the modern ))otany held tlie naive opinion that 

 the plants of Greece and Anatolia could all be found in their 

 northern fields and forests. Yet, a closer search of their re- 

 gions soon cleared up this mistake, and when in that period of 

 the great geographical discoveries the newly acquired terri- 

 tories were exi)lored, it L^ecanie manifest " how unc(|ually is 

 woven the carpet with which vegetation clothes the naked 

 earth," and that there were vastly more plants than what were 

 known to Plinius and Dioscorides. The number of plants rec- 

 ognized as distinguished kinds increased so rapidly that even 

 the most favored memory could not encompass all. The old 

 names were not sufficient, and new ones had to be invented. 

 Authors strove to make the descriptions as plain as possible, 

 and the illustrations were, after the early example of the 

 Greeks, inserted into the text, as true to nature as the 

 newlv invented art of wood engraving could accomplish. 

 Soon the necessity of an orderly arrangement to facilitate 

 identification became imperative. Such a repertory is called 

 a svstem. and from tliat tmie it appeared to be the principal 

 problem of botany to find a system by the aid of w^hich a sur- 

 vey of the vegetable kingdom would be rendered easy, and the 

 proper name of an unknown plant be found with the least 

 effort. 



Not before the middle of the last century appeared that 

 analytic mind who would teach men to find the way through 

 the immeasurable plenitude of plants, and likewise animals — 

 Linn^>, who, far ahead of his time, gifted with eminent power 

 of conception, grasped and perfected a perspicuous plan of 

 arranging all terrestrial objects into classes, orders, genera, 

 and species. He carried botanists through a severe but 

 wholesome schooling, training them to fix their eyes upon 

 plants attentively, to dissect and compare them. He is like- 

 wise the author of an admirable scientific language (terminol- 

 ogy), which provides for every difference of plant form an ex- 

 act and intelligible term. 



In that way more than in any other, Linn^ excelled his 

 predecessors, when he perceived that the utility of a system 



