THE PLACE OF LINNEUS IN THE HISTORY OF BOTANY 263 
With a fervour and, one would almost say, enthusiasm worthy 
of a better cause, Sachs has endeavoured to show that Linneus was 
far from being the great man we always have on accustomed to 
consider him; and, although he is obliged now and then to say @ few 
words in favour of Linneus, the general opinion expressed is that 
the fame attached for nearly two centuries to the name of Linneus 
is not deserved, but is only a kind of popular falla 
ccording to Sachs, Linneeus was not. the founder of systematic 
botany. He m may only be regarded ‘‘ as having bailt a up and com- 
pleted the edifice of doctrine founded by Cesa alpino”’; ‘ or ** he so far 
marks rather the close of a previous condition of the selence: than 
¢ scW. 
Oo, his Li 
the snivbstiganiate and cident of his pr redecessors ” (p. 98). 
According to Sachs (p. 191), ‘the knowledge of the plants was 
rather hindered than advanced by hi 
It must strike the reader that while Sachs has only praise for the 
rk of Jung and other ‘‘German fathers of botany,” he ridicules 
< sain ever ything i in Linneus as “ atieditevat, ” * unscientific,” &e. 
achmann, Camerarius, Ray, ‘‘and in part also Morison and 
Tournefort,’’ were ‘‘ genuine investigators of nature” (p. 101), but 
Linnzus “ might almost be said to have been a classifying, co- 
ordinating, and alindinkine yest ” (p. 90). Linneus ha 
not the remotest conception “of the _ in which the truth of a 
hypothetical fact is proved on the principles of strict inductive in- 
vestigation,’’ and ‘‘ scholastic sophistry is all that his op scape 
amounts to ”” (p. 89). 
rof. Sachs’s severe criticism of Linneus is err padsrrCar nit 
supported by any quotations from the writings of the latter, and it 
is evident that he had read only those works of iene most 
commonly known. In fae t, he admits once (p. 104) that his 
authority for the contents of two of Linnwus’s Ptr upon 
which he has based some of his reasoning, is Wigand. 
. Sachs r repeatedly says that another conception than~his of 
Linneeus's historical position ‘ can only be entertained by one who 
is not acquainted with the works of Cesalpino, Jung, Ray, and 
i quotations from them 
J. Sachs: History of Botany, in English edition, by Garnsey & 
Ballour. mee 
+ Kritik und a. der fiieiiiaie 1846. 
