LINN.f;US IN 1734. ^ 401 



methods in botany acknowledge the system of Cesalpinus as their 

 basis; but the doftrine of Linn^us is of a quite different nature. 

 He suppressed the great number of false genera, and reduced every 

 •thing to its real genus : he omitted the absurd nomma generica, and 

 substituted new ones in their place. He added, by a double theory, 

 the art of getting acquainted with the virtues of the plants. He also 

 first described a great number of new genera of plants from the 

 East and West Indies. 



He divided the animal reign into six classes, namely into quadrupeds, 

 birds, amphibious animals, fishes, insefts and worms. He added to each 

 the generical chara6ters and the species. No naturalist but himself had 

 ever accurately distinguished the worms from the inserts, although in his 

 opinion they are more distinft from each other than the amphibious 

 animals and the birds, or the birds and the quadrupeds. He is of opi- 

 nion, that the generation of the worms in the bowels of human beings^ 

 is not to be attributed to the spawn of the insefts. 



The Hygra, which has been described by the ancients, and denied by 

 some modern writers, he also mentioned as it has been lately found, 

 and is preserved alive in England. 



Fff 



AN 



