Abstract of a paper read before the British Association meeting at Manchester, September, 1887.
LINNÆUS.[1]
By C.S. Hallberg.
At intervals in the history of science, long periods of comparative inertia have attended the death of its more distinguished workers. As time progresses and the number of workers increases, there is a corresponding increase in the number of men whose labors merit distinction in the literature of every language; but as these accessions necessitate in most cases further division of the honors, many names conspicuously identified with modern science fail of their just relative rank, and fade into unmerited obscurity. Thus the earlier workers in science, like Scheele, Liebig, Humboldt, and others of that and later periods, have won imperishable fame, to which we all delight to pay homage, while others of more recent times, whose contributions have perhaps been equally valuable for their respective periods, are given stinted recognition of their services, if indeed their names are not quite forgotten. Nothing illustrates so clearly the steps in the evolution of science as a review of the relative status of its representatives. As in the political history of the world an epoch like that of the French revolution stands out like a mountain peak, so in the history of science an epoch occurs rather by evolution than revolution, when a hitherto chaotic, heterogeneous mass of knowledge is rapidly given shape and systematized. Previous to the seventeenth century an immense mass of facts had accumulated through the labors of investigators working under the Baconian philosophy, but these facts had been thrown together in a confused, unsystematic manner. A man of master mind was then needed to grasp the wonders of nature and formulate the existing knowledge of them into a scientific system with a natural basis. Such a system was given by Linnæus, and so great were its merits that it continues the foundation of all existing systems of classification.
Charles Linnæus was born May 13, 1707, in a country place named Roshult in Smaland, near Skane, Sweden. He was called Charles after the well known Swedish knight errant, King Charles XII., then at the height of his renown.
The natural beauty of his native place, with its verdure-clad hills, its stately trees, and sparkling brooks fringed with mosses and flowers, inspired the boy Linnæus with a love of nature and a devotion to her teachings which tinged the current of his whole life. He was destined by his parents for the ministry, and in accordance with their wish was sent to the Vexio Academy ("gymnasium"). Here the dull theological studies interfered so much with his study of nature that he would have felt lost but for the sympathy of Dr. Rothman, one of his teachers, a graduate of Harderwyk University, Holland, who had been a pupil of Boerhaave (the most eminent physician and scientist of his day), and been much impressed by his scientific teachings.
Dr. Rothman took a great interest in Linnæus, and assured his father that he would prove a great success financially and otherwise as a physician (an occupation whose duties then included a study of all existing sciences). The father was satisfied, but dreaded the effect the announcement of such a career would have on the mother, whose ambition had been to see her son's name among the long list of clergymen of the family who had been ministers to the neighboring church of Stentrohult. She finally yielded, and the best possible use was made by Linnæus of Dr. Rothman's tuition. Latin, then the mother tongue of all scientists and scholars, he wrote and spoke fluently.
At the age of twenty Linnæus entered the University of Lund, and remained there a year. Here he formed the acquaintance of a medical man, a teacher in the university, who opened his home and his library to him, and took him on his botanical excursions and professional visits. Some time later, on Dr. Rothman's advice, Linnæus entered the University of Upsala, then the most celebrated university of Northern Europe. His parents were able to spare him but one hundred silver thalers for his expenses. At the end of a year his money was spent, his clothing and shoes were worn out, and he was without prospects of obtaining a scholarship. When things were at their gloomiest he accidentally entered into a discussion with a stranger in the botanical garden, who turned out to be a clergyman scientist named Celsius. Celsius, while staying at Upsala, had conceived the plan of given a botanical description of biblical plants. Having learned that Linnæus had a herbarium of 600 plants, he took the young man under his protection, and opened up to him his home and library.