ANECDOTES OP LINN-®T7S. 
IX 
the immensity of beings which cover the globe ; 
and perhaps greater still in the extraordinary num- 
ber of observations, and in the hypotheses which are 
founded upon them, and gradually became theoreti- 
cal truths. The hypotheses of Linnams 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 ob- 
servations in Nature on which they are founded, 
and must acknowledge them afterwards, if not as 
true, at least as probable and as deserving of a more 
minute inquiry. 
“ Among his manuscripts there must certainly 
have been found many important remarks ; I should 
have been very desirous of seeing those which re- 
late to the general arrangement of Nature. He 
must have collected the most interesting observa- 
tions on this head. Ho contemplated Nature with 
the greatest accuracy, and with so much knowledge 
and judicous skill, as to have penetrated into her 
most secret mysteries. But he dared not, as he him- 
self assured me, publish those observations during 
his life, because he was afraid of the excessive vio- 
lence of the Swedish divines, who, frequently too 
faithful and too bigotted to their own arguments, do 
not consider, that Nature as well as Revelation, 
proclaim, in unison of principle, the hands of that 
Great Master who formed both. Linnaeus had the 
example of his pupil Forskal before his eyes, who 
