OPPONENTS OF L I N N U S. 117 



LiNN/Eus" — says the Chevalier Zimmermann, " a pupil and 

 " friend of Haller, with whom he was well acquainted by several 

 " years domestic connexion, — had in the course of a few years pulled 

 " down the whole stru£lure of botany, that he might ereft on the ruins 



of his predecessors his own system; he reje£led every thing foreign 

 " to his own precepts, and sent the greatest botanists into a school, 

 " where they were first to learn the signification of the names he had 

 " created, and the laws of his system. Haller, with placid eye, saw 

 " this mighty di&ator step forth ; he was not insensible of the necessity 

 " of a reform, but saw at the same time, that he went too far. He fol- 

 " lowed Linn -E us where ever he thought the truth was his guide, 

 " but where the latter only dealt in hypodieses, he there quitted him. 

 *' The plurality of methods," said he, " is not hurtful, unless they grow 

 " too imperious, like the Linn^ean system." 



This pride of Linn^us in his science, this exclusive authority which 

 he maintained, and the unfriendly and rigorous animadversions which 

 sometimes attended his sway, excited the displeasure of Haller, and 

 gave him frequent opportunities to indulge himself in strong censure. Wc 

 shall quote here some of those criticisms, as we should otherwise offend 

 against candor and truth, and expose in a diminitive light the great 

 merits of Linnteus, were we to pass over in silence the reproaches 

 and objeftions raised against him. 



Baron Haller having been somewhat severely treated in the 

 critique given by Linn^us, in the year 1745, of the Flora Suecica, ex- 

 pressed himself as follows in the review of the Fauna Suecica : " The 

 " unbounded dominion which Linnaeus has assumed in the animal 

 " reign, must upon the whole appear disgusting to many persons. He 

 1 " considered 



