LINNZEUS AND NATURAL HISTORY 129 
pair of each kind of animals was created, and that existing 
species were the direct descendants without change of form 
or habit from the original pair. As to their number, he said: 
“Species tot sunt, quot forme ab initio create sunt’’—there 
are just so many species as there were forms created in the 
beginning; and his oft-quoted remark, ‘‘ Nudla species nova,” 
indicates in terse language his position as to the formation of 
new species. Linnzeus took up this idea as expressing the cur- 
rent thought, without analysis of what was involved in it. He 
readily might have seen that if there were but a single pair 
of each kind, some of them must have been sacrificed to 
the hunger of the carnivorous kinds; but, better than making 
any theories, he might have looked for evidence in nature as 
to the fixity of species. 
While Linnzus first pronounced upon the fixity of species, 
it is interesting to note that his extended observations upon 
nature led him to see that variation among animals and plants 
is common and extensive, and accordingly in the later editions 
of his Systenta Nature we find him receding from the position 
that species are fixed and constant. Nevertheless, it was 
owing to his influence, more than to that of any other writer 
of the period, that the dogma of fixity of species was estab- 
lished. His great contemporary Buffon looked upon species 
as not having a fixed reality in nature, but as being fig- 
ments of the imagination; and we shall see ina later section 
of this book how the idea of Linneeus in reference to the 
fixity of species gave way to accumulating evidence on the 
matter. 
Summary.—The chief services of Linneus to natural 
science consisted of these three things: bringing into current 
use the binomial nomenclature, the introduction of terse 
formule for description, and fixing attention upon species. 
The first two were necessary steps; they introduced clearness 
and order into the management of the immense number of 
