X 
ANECDOTES OF LINN_®US. 
immediately after his return from Goettingen, saw 
himself involved in so many theological disputes, as 
would, perhaps, have hcen carried too far, had he 
not left the field of litigation, by setting out on his 
voyage to Arabia. 
“ Linnoeus knew how to secure to himself, even 
in his earlier days, that dominion over the three 
reigns of Nature, which he preserved till death. 
“ In mineralogy his very countrymen entered the 
lists of contention against him. He certainly was 
often attacked and censured with injustice ; and the 
little inaccuracies, which will never fail to exist in 
works of that importance, ought to have been pal- 
liated and overlooked, on account of the other great 
merits of their author. It is, however, an incontro- 
vertible fact, that he first introduced systematic 
regularity' in the mineral reign. He formed the 
classes, and determined the genera and species by 
regular distinctive marks, which he derived from the 
external appearance. Thus mineralogy became a 
regular science, after it had formerly been but a 
chaos created by the miners, who used to discrimi- 
nate the minerals partly by practice and partly by 
firo. Linnajus having once left the mines, having 
no laboratory, and being over-burdened by a multi- 
plicity of other occupations, discontinued to exert 
himself so much in mineralogy. His system is 
however excellent, his hypothesis the fruit of the 
ripest reflection, his description of the species is 
excellent, and his observations truly important. In 
