XXIV 
LINN^AN SYSTEM. 
crowd of unarranged ideas, like the disunited and scattered links 
of what ought to form a beautiful and magnificent chain. 
That I am not alone in thus viewing the system of Linnseus, 
I could show by numerous references to eminent authorities. 
“ Through the whole of the Linnsean classifications,” says 
Dr. Aiken, there runs the same attention to minute circum- 
stances in quest of distinctive marks, which throws a littleness 
over his systems, and gives them the praise rather of ingeni- 
ous invention, than of coincidence with the sublime plans of 
creation.”* Professor Lindley is still more severe, when he 
says, the Linnsean system “ skims only the surface of things, 
and leaves the student in the fancied possession of a sort of 
information, which it is easy enough to obtain, but which is 
of little value when acquired. ”f When the botanical, which is 
by far the best of the Linnsean systems, is thus spoken of by a dis- 
tinguished master of the science, what are we to think of the others ? 
White of Selborne, speaking also of Linnsean botany, treats it in 
the same way, when he says, “ the standing objection has always 
been, that it is a pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises the 
memory, without improving the mind or advancing any real know- 
ledge,” and where the science is carried no farther than a mere 
systematic classification, the charge is but too true. J” Alluding to 
the student of such systems, Mr. Vigors most truly and elegantly 
says, “ his mind becomes wedded to a subordinate branch of his 
subject, and is drawn away from the contemplation of siiblimer 
truths. It is upon the labours of man that he dwells, and not upon 
the works of the creation. He dwindles, as it were, into a mere 
compositor of the volume of nature, artificially putting together 
the symbolic words that stand for ideas, while the ideas themselves, 
in their true meaning and spirit, escape him. And thus the exer- 
tions which, properly directed, might have tended to explain the 
laws and elucidate the operations of nature, which might have been 
devoted to a study purely intellectual, are lost in a pursuit which is 
strictly and exclusively mechanical.” § “Linnseus,” says Mr. Kirby, 
“ taught us, indeed, how to name properly the smaller branches and 
* Letters to a Son, i. 126. 
, X Nat. Hist. Selb. 
f Synopsis of tlie British Flora, Pref. p. xi. 
§ Zool. Jour. i. 181. 
