VISIT TO ENGLAND 
169 
after the long sleep of the Middle Ages, was eagerly 
prosecuted, and had produced a very important litera¬ 
ture. Unhappily it was credulous, uncritical, and 
without guiding principles, the works producing the 
impression of being written in a rude and rough way. 
Science had sunk to the greatest barbarism, in which 
confusion and arbitrary opinion reigned together. 
The time for a thorough reformation was ripe. The 
reformer must enter with undaunted courage, 
putting aside what was false in the teaching of 
the predecessors, and substituting for the discarded 
statements, such as were supported by accurate 
observation and irrefutable principles. It was order, 
clarity, and easy comprehension for which people 
longed, and this not least in the matter of system, 
when many, troubled and confused by the numerous 
unsuccessful and unworkable attempts at systems, 
declared that alphabetic arrangement of natural 
objects was the only satisfactory one. A reformer 
now appeared in Linnaeus. He came, well versed in 
the subject, suave in method, as a deliverer from the 
universal confusion. He furnished simple, well- 
founded laws to classify the differences of Nature 
with such clearness and simplicity, that this revolution, 
due to his writings, took place without violent rupture 
or bitter disputes. Naturally, many older men 
thoughtfully shook their heads at such novelties, 
having special objections to both principles and 
details, but these objections led to no open polemics. 
With earnest or joking utterances, a correspondence, 
without bitterness or heat, was entered upon with 
Linnaeus, usually ending with recognition of the 
value of the new views, except on a few minor points. 
It is not to be wondered at that the younger men 
(practically as a body), crowded round Linnaeus, and 
soon he was universally greeted with praise in 
contemporary publications from such leaders as 
Boerhaave, Haller, Burman, Dillenius, Gronovius, 
Sauvages, Gesner, Ludwig and others, who, generally 
