Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/104

 from which Linnaeus drew, but it would be a misapprehension to see in this any depreciation of a great man; it were to be desired that all naturalists would, like Linnaeus, adopt all that is good in the contributions of their predecessors, and improve or adapt it as he did. Linnaeus himself has repeatedly quoted the sources of his knowledge as far as they were known to him, and has in many cases estimated the services of his predecessors with a candour which never betrays a trace of jealousy, but often displays a warm respect, as may be seen especially in the short introductions to the several systems given in the 'Classes Plantarum.' Linnaeus could not only recognise what was good in his predecessors and occasionally make use of it, but he imparted life and fruitfulness to the thoughts of others by applying them as he applied his own thoughts, and bringing out whatever theoretical value they possessed. It was evidently this freshness of life that often misled his successors into believing that Linnaeus thought out and discovered everything for himself. We learn to appreciate the contributions of Cesalpino and his successors in the 17th century, and even of Kaspar Bauhin for the first time in the works of Linnaeus; we are astonished to see the long-known thoughts of these writers, which in their own place look unimportant and incomplete, fashioned by Linnaeus into a living whole; thus he was at once and in the best sense both receptive and productive, and he might perhaps have done more for the theory of the science if he had not been entangled in one grave error, which was more sharply pronounced in him than in his predecessors and contemporaries, that, namely, of supposing that the highest and only worthy task of a botanist is to know all species of the vegetable kingdom exactly by name. Linnaeus distinctly declared that this was his view, and his school in Germany and England adhered to it so firmly that it established itself with the general public, who to the present day consider it as a self-evident proposition that a botanist exists essentially for the purpose of at once designating any