OF THE LIFE OF LINN/EUS, 223 



" sisted only of a few pages in t" e beginning, but the twelfth and last 



edition which appeared at Sicckhobn in 1767, at the expiration of 

 " thirty years after its lir^t appearance, formed two large v.jlunies. 

 " All the creatures of tlie animal reign then known, were arrangf:d in 

 " it with as much accuracy and precision as- the plants h^d been 

 " described in bis botanical works. Every animal \vith its cha- 

 " rafteristics, its synonymous and trivial names, its country and prin- 

 " cipal qualities, could easily be found in it. He taught us to distin- 

 « guish the species of the serpents by the number of their shields or 

 « scales, the fishes by the position of their fins,, and was the first who 



ranged in due order the inseQs, those dumb and deaf instruments of 

 "nature, which coll eft in much larger numbers than any other living 

 « animals, and. are in general only known by the mischief which we 

 *' accuse them of committing upon us." 



Linnaeus also introduced a more convenient method of ordering the 

 testaceous animals-*. The stone-plants or corals were even before his 

 time mixed with the zoophites, worms, and inse6ls. Linn/eus pointed 

 out their distinctive marks, and all were thus put in their proper place. All 

 the animated beings were described on that muster-roll in such a manner 

 that the lover of nature on the frigid coast of Greenland miglit learn to 

 knov/ by it even the smallest butterfly in the regions of India. 



The merits of Linnjeus in Mineralogy were, doubtless, very shin- 

 ing and eminent. He was the first who established the genera in that 

 science, and precisely indicated their charafteristic signs. His mi- 



• «' LiNN^us," says Condorcet in his panegyric, " miglit doubtless have employed 

 *' with regard to the animals the system which he used for the plants, but he was appre- 

 " hensive, lest, in spite of all the modesty and gravity which appeared in his lessons and his 

 " works, that method should too frequently oiftr to his pupils, images which naturalists 

 ** themselves caijnot always have the privilege to contemplate with -total indifference." 



neral 



