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ANECDOTES. 
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« teacher, and I acknowledge with emotion, how greatly indebted I am 
/ « to him for his lessons and his friendship. 
« Besides the labour which he bestowed upon medicine, especially 
“ upon the Materia Medica and Pathology, nature was his principal oc- 
cupation, and proclaimed him also as the first darling of his time. 
«'• Great was he in discerning and arranging the immensity of beings 
« which cover the globe ; and perhaps greater still in the extraordi- 
« nary number of observations, and in the hypotheses which are founded 
« upon them, and gradually became theoretical truths. The hypotheses of 
11 Linnaeus indicate most particularly the brilliancy of his imagination, 
« and at the same time, the strength of his judgment. Some of them 
appear extremely bold and venturesome at first ; but upon closer 
« inspection, we find the observations in nature on which they are 
« founded, and must acknowledge them afterwards if not as true, at 
it least -.s probable and as deserving of a more minute enquiry. 
tc /, i^ong his manuscripts there must certainly have been found 
« many important remarks ; I should have been very desirous of see- 
« ing those which relate to the general arrangement of nature. He must 
“ have collected the most interesting observations on this head. He 
« contemplated nature with the greatest accuracy, and with so much 
« knowledge and judicious skill, as to have penetrated into her most 
« secret mysteries. But he dared not, as he himself assured me, publish 
“ those observations during his life, because he was afraid of the exces- 
« s ive violence of the Swedish divines, who, frequently too faithful 
“ and too bigotted to their own arguments, do not consider, that na- 
« ture as well as revelation proclaim in unison of knciple, the hands 
« of that Great Master, who formed both. L. n^eus had the ex- 
te ample 
. * 
