Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect

Summary

A famous debate between John Ray, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Augustus Quirinus Rivinus at the end of the seventeenth century has often been referred to as signalling the beginning of a rift between classificatory methods relying on logical division and classificatory methods relying on empirical grouping. Interestingly, a couple of decades later, Linnaeus showed very little excitement in reviewing this debate, and this although he was the first to introduce the terminological distinction of artificial vs. natural methods. In this paper, I will explain Linnaeus's indifference by the fact that earlier debates were revolving around problems of plant diagnosis rather than classification. From Linnaeus's perspective, they were therefore concerned with what he called artificial methods alone – diagnostic tools, that is, which were artificial no matter which characters were taken into account. The natural method Linnaeus proposed, on the other hand, was not about diagnosis, but about relations of equivalence which played a vital, although largely implicit role in the practices of specimen exchange on which naturalists relied to acquire knowledge of the natural world.

Acknowledgements

Research for this article was supported by the Wellcome Trust Grant Grant on ‘Rewriting the System of Nature: Linnaeus's Use of Writing Technologies’ (WT087231). I would like to thank one anonymous reviewer for perceptive comments on the many weaknesses of the original submission.

Notes

¹Phillip R. Sloan, ‘John Locke, John Ray, and the Problem of the Natural System’, Journal of the History of Biology, 5 (1972), 1–55 (38, 44).

²P. R. Sloan (note 1), 51–52.

³David L. Hull, ‘The Effect of Essentialism on Taxonomy - Two Thousand Years of Stasis (I)’, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 15 (1965), 314–26.

⁴Arthur J. Cain, ‘Logic and Memory in Linnaeus’ System of Taxonomy’, Proceedings of the Linnean Society London, 169 (1958), 144–63; James L. Larson, ‘Linnaeus and the Natural Method’, Isis, 58 (1967), 304–20.

⁵Staffan Müller-Wille, ‘Making Sense of Essentialism’, Critical Quarterly, 53 (2011), 61–77.

⁶To my knowledge, for Ray, the only full biography remains Charles E. Raven, John Ray, Naturalist. His Life and Works (Cambridge, 1942). His role in professionalizing English natural history has been studied more recently in Susan McMahon, Constructing Natural History in England, 1650–1700 (PhD, University of Alberta, 2001). The only volume that extensively treats Tournefort's biography and scientific achievements is Tournefort, edited by Roger Heim (Les Grandes Naturalistes Français: Paris, 1957). The chapter dedicated to Tournefort in André Bailly, Défricheurs d'inconnu: Peiresc, Tournefort, Adanson, Saporta (Aix-en-Provences, 1992) is largely based on this. Virtually no scholarly attention has been paid to Rivinus since Sloan's article, as far as I can see.

⁷Scott Atran, Cognitive Foundations of Natural History: Towards an Anthropology of Science (Cambridge, 1990), 157, 163, 167. The point about Tournefort was already made by Raymond Dughi, ‘Tournefort dans l'histoire de la botanique’, in Tournefort, edited by Roger Heim (Les Grandes Naturalistes Français: Paris, 1957), 131–85. Similar inconsistencies, without attacking Sloan directly, are revealed in John Wilkins, Species: A History of the Idea (Berkley, 2009), 65–70.

⁸Direct attacks on the ‘essentialism story’ can be found in Mary P. Winsor, ‘The Creation of the Essentialism Story: An Exercise in Metahistory’, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 28 (2006), 149–74, and Gordon R. McOuat, ‘The Origins of “Natural Kinds”: Keeping “Essentialism” at Bay in the Age of Reform’, Intellectual History Review, 19 (2009), 211–30. Important contributions that undercut the essentialism story for post-Linnaean taxonomy by careful attention to taxonomic practices are Peter F. Stevens, The Development of Systematics: Antoine-Laurent De Jussieu, Nature and the Natural System (New York, 1994); Gordon R. McOuat, ‘Species, Rules and Meaning: The Politics of Language and the Ends of Definitions in 19th Century Natural History’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 27 (1996), 473–519; and Gordon R. McOuat, ‘From Cutting Nature at Its Joints to Measuring It: New Kinds and New Kinds of People in Biology’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 32 (2001), 613–45.

⁹For the sake of clarity, I will rely on the Linnaen hierarchy of systematic ranks in describing the systems, with species subordinate to genera, genera to orders, and orders to classes. The terminology was not unified in pre-Linnaean taxonomy. In general, botanists employed the Aristotelian terminology, where genus and species are defined relationally (species being subordinate classes of genera), and higher genera are sometimes referred to as ‘supreme’ or ‘subaltern genera’ (genus summum, genus subalternum; see the full title of Ray's Methodus plantarum nova as cited below). ‘Class’ (classis) and ‘order’ (ordo) where occasionally used as synonyms for the latter however. For an interesting example, see John Ray, Methodus plantarum nova, brevitatis & perspicuitatis causa synoptice in tabulis exhibita: cum notis generum tum summorum tum subalternorum characteristicis, observationibus nonnullis de feminibus plantarum & indice copioso (London, 1682), ‘Praefatio ad Lectorem’ [unpag., 2].

¹⁰Cfr. Andrea Caesalpino, De Plantis libri xvi (Florence, 1583); and Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, Élémens de botanique: ou Méthode pour connoître les plantes, 3 vols (Paris, 1694). Dichotomous diagrams are also missing from the the Latin edition of the latter book; see Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, Institutiones rei herbariae, sive Elementa botanices, 3 vols (Paris, 1700).

¹¹Cfr. J. Ray (note 9); and Augustus Quirinus Rivinus, Introductio generalis in rem herbariam, second edition (Leipzig, 1696), 92.

¹²Carl Linnaeus, Classes Plantarum seu Systemata Plantarum omnia a fructificatione desumta, quorum XVI Universalia & XIII Partialia compendiose proposita Secundum classes, ordines et nomina generica cum clave cujusvis methodi et synonymis genericis (Leiden, 1738), ‘Lectori s. Author’ [unpag., 2]: ‘Systemata in Botanicis varia sunt, alia a fructu, alia a petalis, a calice & staminibus alia confecta, sed omnia in eundem finem & scopum collimant [sic; collineant], ut scilicet Botanophilum ad genus compendio ducant’. Excluded from Classes plantarum were systems, however, that did not stick to characters derived from flower and fruit. I will come back to this point in the next section. If not otherwise stated, translations are my own.

¹³C. Linnaeus, ‘Manuscripta Medica’ (1727–1730), 2 vols, Library of the Linnean Society (London), Linnaean Collections, call no. LMGen, I, ff. 9–26. The volume also contains similar diagrams representing systems underlying Ray's zoological works.

¹⁴For a more detailed discussion of these early manuscripts, see Staffan Müller-Wille and Isabelle Charmantier, ‘Natural History and Information Overload: The Case of Linnaeus’, Studies in Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43, 4–15 (6–7). An edition of the manuscript ‘Spolia Botanica’, with detailed commentary, can be found in Ewald Ährling (ed.), Carl von Linnés Ungdomsskrifter (Stockholm, 1888), 53–105.

¹⁵E. Ährling (note 14), 57.

¹⁶Carl Linnaeus, Bibliotheca Botanica recensens libros plus mille de plantis huc usque editos, secundum Systema Auctorum Naturale in Classes, Ordines, Genera & Species dispositos (Amsterdam, 1736), 120: ‘Eristicos voco Botanicos Philosophos & Theoreticos, qui scriptis litigarunt. Hi licet propria sua scripta scommaribus & verbis, viris honesti & sanis plane indignis communiter defaecarunt, saepius tamen observationes, Canones & ratiocinia simul in medium produxerunt, ut inter Philosophos eis locum concedere debeamus’.

¹⁷Caroli Linnaei Arch. et Equ. Praelectiones Publicae in Philosophiam Botanicam habitae Upsaliae 1758 et 1759 [manuscript copy of lecture notes taken by a student and preserved in St Petersburg], Uppsala University Library, Linné saml., D75, 66–7: ‘Eristicos som sinsemellan haft stora, men mycket owetiga stridskrifter’.

¹⁸See e.g. Carl Linnaeus, Philosophia botanica in qua explicantur Fundamenta Botanica cum Definitionibus Partium, Exemplis Terminorum, Observationibus Rariorum (Stockholm, 1751), 11.

¹⁹Brent Berlin, Ethnobiological Classification: Principles of Categorization of Plants and Animals in Traditional Societies (Princeton, NJ, 1992).

²⁰Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge, 1977).

²¹David M. Balme, ‘Aristotle's Use of Division and Differentiae’, in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology, edited by Allan Gotthelf and James G. Lennox (Cambridge, 1987), 65–89 (88); and Pierre Pellegrin, Les classification des animaux chez Aristote: Statut de la biologie et unité de l′Aristotélisme (Paris, 1982), 161. For an interesting discussion of ‘natural’ taxa in Aristotle's zoology, see Alexander Fürst von Lieven and Marcel Humar, ‘A Cladistic Analysis of Aristotle's Animal Groups in the Historia animalium’, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 30 (2008), 227–62.

²²P. F. Stevens (note 8), 12 and 403, n. 44.

²³Caesalpino (note 10), 25: ‘Cyclamini & Rapi distantissimae est natura in caeteris omnibus’; John Ray, Stirpium europaearum extra Britannias nascentium sylloge (London, 1694), Praefatio [unpag., 17]: ‘Methodum … Naturae convenientem’; J. P. de Tournefort, Élémens (note 10), 20: ‘les ranger à leur place naturelle’.

²⁵Carl Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, sive Regna Tria Naturae systematice proposita per Classes, Ordines, Genera, & Species (Leiden, 1735); ‘Observationes in Regnum Vegetabile’ [unpag.], aph. 12: ‘Nullum Systema Naturale, licet unum vel alterum propius accedat, adhucdum constructum est; nec ego heic Systema quoddam Naturale contendo (forte alia vice ejus Fragmenta exhibebo); neque Naturale construi potuit, antequam omnia, ad nostrum Systema pertinentia, notissima sint. Interim tamen Systema artificialia, defectu Naturalis, omnino necessaria sunt’.

²⁴See, e.g., William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences from the Earliest to the Present Time, 3 vols (London, 1857), III, 268.

²⁶Staffan Müller-Wille, ‘Collection and Collation: Theory and Practice of Linnaean botany’, Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 38 (2007), 541–62.

²⁷Carl Linnaeus, Genera Plantarum eorumque Characteres Naturales secundum Numerum, Figuram, Situm, Proportionem Omnium Fructificationis Partium (Leiden, 1737); ‘Ratio operis’ [unpag.], aph. 8: ‘Assumserunt enim Varii diversas partes fructificationis pro principio Systematico, & cum eo secundum divisionis leges a Classibus per ordines descenderunt ad Species usque, & hypotheticis ac arbitrariis his principiis fregerunt & dilacerarunt naturalis, nec arbitraria genera’. Here, and in the following, I am following the English translation in Staffan Müller-Wille and Karen Reeds, ‘A translation of Carl Linnaeus's introduction to Genera plantarum (1737)’, Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 38 (2007), 563–72.

²⁸Linnaeus (note 27), ‘Ratio operis’, [unpag.], aph. 16: ‘Factitius Character unicam notam generi imponit, qua unum a reliquis sub eodem Ordine exhibitis (non ab aliis) distinguere tenetur. Character ejusmodi est intellectu omnium facillimus, & instituitur per Dichotomias seu Tabulas Synopticas, uti a Rajo (in praecedentibus Synopsis editionibus), Knautio, Kramero dati’.

²⁹Linnaeus (note 27), ‘Ratio operis’, [unpag.], aph. 16: ‘cum enim Genus aliquod detegitur novum, fallaces evadunt proximi & quotquot e ramo, cum annecti debet, enati sunt’.

³⁰A. Q. Rivinus (note 11), 92: ‘Id vero longe clarissimum erit, si per modum Tabulae demonstretur, quomodo ex illis Plantarum divisionibus omnes earum Ordinibus deduci erant’.

³¹S. Atran (note 7), 156–7, notes that Caesalpino's system already was not deductive, but combinatory in the sense just explained.

³²P. R. Sloan (note 1), 36–7 (on Rivinus), 47–8 (on Tournefort).

³³Again, Sloan concedes this for Ray; see P. R. Sloan (note 1), 47. In the Latin edition of his Élémens, Tournefort invokes the ‘art of combination (ars combinandi)’ to argue for his system; see, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, Institutiones Rei Herbariae, sive Elementa Botanices (Paris, 1700), 55.

³⁴See, for example, C. Linnaeus (note 12), ‘Lectori s. Author’ [unpag., 1–2].

³⁵Carl Linnaeus, Genera Plantarum eorumque Characters Naturales secundum Numerum, Figuram, Situm, Proportionem Omnium Fructificationis Partium, sixth edition (Stockholm, 1764), ‘Ordines naturales’, [unpag.], aph. 10.

³⁶C. Linnaeus (note 27), ‘Ratio operis’, aph. 8–9. For a detailed interpretation of this important passage, see S. Müller-Wille (note 26), 546–50.

³⁷C. Linnaeus (note 12), 435–514. On the importance of lists in the work of Linnaeus see Staffan Müller-Wille and Isabelle Charmantier, ‘Lists as Research technologies’, Isis, 103 (2012), 743–752.

³⁸C. Linnaeus (note 18), 27–36; C. Linnaeus (note 35), ‘Ordines naturales’, [unpag.].

³⁹Carl Linnaeus, Corollarium Genera Plantarum, exhibens genera plantarum sexaginta (Leiden, 1737), ‘Lectori’, [unpag.]: ‘… Characteres hi nil nisi descriptiones generum sint …’ (emphases in the original). For a full quote and detailed analysis, see S. Müller-Wille (note 26), 552–3.

⁴⁰C. Linnaeus (note 27), ‘Ratio operis’, [unpag.], aph. 20.

⁴¹C. Linnaeus (note 12), 487.

⁴²C. Linnaeus (note 18), 27.

⁴³Müller-Wille and Charmantier (note 37), 750.

⁴⁴C. Linnaeus (note 12), 441.

⁴⁵C. Linnaeus (note 27), ‘Ratio operis’, [unpag.], aph. 18.

⁴⁶S. Müller-Wille and I. Charmantier (note 14).

⁴⁷Lisbet Koerner, Linnaeus: Nature and Nation (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 144. On the significance of specimen exchange for Linnaeus's taxonomic thinking see Staffan Müller-Wille, ‘Nature as a Marketplace: The Political Economy of Linnaean Botany’, in Oeconomies in the Age of Newton, edited by Neil de Marchi and Margaret Schabas (History of political Economy, Suppl. 35: Durham, 2003), 155–73.

⁴⁸C. Linnaeus (note 27), ‘Ratio operis’, [unpag.], aph. 12. Linnaeus deleted these remarks in the sixth edition.

⁴⁹John Ray, Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum, tum Indigenis, tum in Agris Cultis, Locis suis dispositis, third edition (London, 1724); cfr. P. R. Sloan (note 1), 45–6.

⁵⁰Brian W.Ogilvie, The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe (Chicago, 2006); Alix Cooper, Inventing the Indigenous: Local Knowledge and Natural History in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2007).