198 REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES 



demical dissertations. In 1751 he published commentaries upon them, 

 which were at the same time a comprehensive view and justification of 

 his whole system. This work is intituled Philosophia Botanica. After 

 a short review of the principal botanists and their systems, he explains 

 in twelve seftions the different parts of the plants, furnishes examples to 

 fix the charafters of classes and orders, to discern the bastard species 

 from the common species, to describe them accurately, and to arrange 

 precisely their synonomy, Sec. Sec. All this displays the produdion of 

 the hand of an experienced master, whose genius appears to be equally 

 inventive, well regulated, and methodical. At the end of this valuable 

 work LiNNi^ius gives advice to young botanists, and adds instrutlions 

 how to prepare herbals, to establish botanical gardens, and the best dis- 

 positions to be adopted in excursions and philosophical tours. This 

 work remains a book of precepts for the botanical world, which be- 

 comes indispensably necessary to all those who wish for a fundamental 

 knowledge of that science. Rousseau, mentioning this produftion, 

 says " It is the most philosophical book I ever saw in my life*. — Cest 

 le livrc Ic plus philosophique, que jai vu, de ma vie. 



Two years after appeared a work, which together with his System of 

 Nature, became the immortal monument of his diligence and ingenuity 

 both for his own age and for posterity, and w hich had occupied him for 

 a long series of years. This was his Species Plantanim, published at 

 Stockholm in 1753, with his portrait, in oftavo, containing 1,200 pages. 



* John Gf.sner wrote on the 19th of June !75i, what follov.'s-to Haller from Zurich: 

 " LiNN^i philosophiam botanicam legi, plenam dodlrhias et experientias botanicas, cum miil- 

 " tis et novis et mutatis vocum determinationibiis. Erant, quibus sibi multa vel nimia, aliis 



nha'is panca tribuere videbitur." 



It 



