164 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
matters of classification, the rule of Linnaeus was 
supreme, and any effort to recast his artificial 
groupings was looked at as heretical in the ex- 
treme. The attempt at a natural classification of 
plants, which has made the fame of Jussieu, had 
the full sympathy of Rafinesque; but to his Ameri- 
can contemporaries such work could lead only to 
confusion. Then, again, in some few of its phases, 
Rafinesque anticipated the modern doctrine of the 
origin of species. That the related species of such 
genera as Rosa, Quercus, Trifolium, have had a 
common origin, — a view the correctness of which 
no well-informed botanist of our day can possibly 
doubt, — Rafinesque then maintained against the 
combined indignation and disgust of all his fellow- 
workers. His writings on these subjects read bet- 
ter to-day than when, forty-five years ago, they 
were sharply reviewed by one of our then young 
and promising botanists, Dr. Asa Gray. 
But the botanists had good reason to complain 
of the application of Rafinesque’s theories of evo- 
lution. To him, the production of a new species 
was a rapid process,—a hundred years was time 
enough, — and when he saw the tendency in di- 
verging varicties toward the formation of new 
species, he was eager to anticipate Nature (and 
his fellow-botanists as well), and give it a new 
name, He became a monomaniac on the subject 
of new species. He was uncontrolled in this 
matter by the influence of other writers, — that 
incredulous conservatism as to another's discov- 
eries which furnishes a salutary balance to enthu- 
siastic workers. Before his death so much had 
