This post is the third in a short blog series featuring important figures in the history of natural history.
Carl Linnaeus was interested in botany from a young age. Both of his parents encouraged this passion, and would even give him flowers to cheer him up if he was upset. His father was both a gardener and a botanist and taught him the names of different plants, but Linnaeus often had a difficult time remembering the lengthy Latin names.
As Linnaeus got older he decided to pursue a medical degree, since this was required to become a botanist at the time. He made many observations of the plants and animals in his homeland, but in describing species, he was still frustrated by the unwieldiness of lengthy species names. Linnaeus was a very practical person, and looked to create a standard method of naming and classifying organisms. His solution was to create the system of binomial nomenclature, which he introduced in a work titled Species Plantarum. This is regarded as his greatest contribution to science; his system of naming species is still used by taxonomists today.
Linnaeus’ most famous work is his Systema Naturae, in which he distinguished between three main groups: plants, animals and minerals. The first edition of Systema Naturae was published in 1735 and was very short, but each successive edition increased dramatically. The tenth edition, published in 1758, includes descriptions for over 6000 animal species and 4000 plant species. It is this edition that is considered as the starting point of zoological nomenclature.
Another important work from Linnaeus is The Economy of Nature. Though the work contains original ideas from Linnaeus, the text itself was likely written up by one of his students as a summary of his lectures. In The Economy of Nature, Linnaeus discusses the origin of species. His belief was that there was a single mountain, and that all species were created at the top of the mountain by God. Then, as the species came down the mountain and inhabited other areas, they began to diversify into varieties. Thus, while Linnaeus was a creationist, he believed that variations were not created directly by God at the first creation event but afterwards. This is an idea that influenced Darwin in the studies which culminated in the Origin of Species.
Special thanks to Emily Sandall for teaching me about the early life of Linnaeus!
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