RISE AND PROGRESS OF ZOOLOGY. XXXlll 



sition, and almost universally received. To 

 the most numerous and malignant invectives 

 he never offered a reply — nor was this through 

 false pride, for no man was ever more ready 

 to acknowledge the merits of another, or less 

 partial to his own defects. He well knew 

 that every artificial classification must of ne- 

 cessity be more or less imperfect, and that 

 every system must finally rest upon its merits 

 as a whole. He, therefore, determined neither 

 to sacrifice time nor degrade science by per- 

 sonal controversy — an example which might 

 well have been imitated by many of his suc- 

 cessors. 



Little are those persons acquainted with 

 Linnaeus, who consider him merely in the light 

 of a nomenclator. His expanded genius led 

 him to take the noblest and most elevated 

 views of nature. He observed with the most 

 wonderful delicacy and sagacity the subtlest 

 affinities of all organized beings ; their in- 

 terior and most secret resemblances he seemed 

 to discover almost by intuition. But this is 

 only a proof how deeply he had meditated on 

 the laws of nature. He penetrated with a glance 

 into causes which were the least obvious on the 

 surface, and seized at once on those delicate 

 shades of distinction which had escaped the 



