XXXll PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE 



could soon boast of a crowd of authors 

 equally distinguished for genius and research. 

 In the front of these stands a name that 

 can never perish but with the destruction of 

 these sciences themselves — the immortal Lin- 



N.flEUS ! 



The name of Linnaeus is not unworthy to 

 stand beside that of Aristotle himself. His 

 powers of invention and discrimination were 

 scarcely inferior to those of the Stagyrite ; his 

 imagination, lively and fertile in the highest 

 degree, was yet always under the control of 

 the soundest judgment, and regulated by the 

 strictest attention to systematic laws. He was 

 distinguished by a most retentive memory, a 

 most unremitting application, the greatest per- 

 severance, and the most ardent devotion to the 

 cause of science. Very early in life did he 

 adopt the gigantic design of entirely reforming 

 and re-arranging the history of all natural pro- 

 ductions, and he prosecuted it with untiring 

 vigour to the close of his existence. On Na- 

 tural History he bestowed a degree of perfec- 

 tion to which it had never attained before. 

 He possessed the happiness, during his own life 

 (a circumstance very unusual with the founders 

 of systems), of seeing his own method eventu- 

 ally triumphant over the most inveterate oppo- 



