Volume 1

The history of creation, or, The development of the earth and its inhabitants by the action of natural causes : a popular exposition of the doctrine of evolution in general, and of that of Darwin, Goethe and Lamarck in particular / from the German of Ernst Haeckel ; the translation revised by Professor E. Ray Lankester.

Ernst Haeckel

Date:: 1876

Credit: The history of creation, or, The development of the earth and its inhabitants by the action of natural causes : a popular exposition of the doctrine of evolution in general, and of that of Darwin, Goethe and Lamarck in particular / from the German of Ernst Haeckel ; the translation revised by Professor E. Ray Lankester. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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of creation, together with the dogmas connected with it, has | become so generally predominant, that the 19th century is j the first that has dared positively to rise against it. Even the great Swedish naturalist, Linnseus, the founder of modern natural history, linked his System of Nature most closely to the Mosaic history of creation. The extraordinary progress which Charles Linnseus made in the so-called descriptive natural sciences, consists, as is ] well known, in his having established a system of nomencla- ture of animals and plants, which he carried out in a manner so perfectly logical and consistent, that down to the present day it has remained in many respects the standard for all succeeding naturalists engaged in the study of the forms of animals and plants. Although Linnseus’ system was artificial, although in classifying animal and vegetable | species he only sought and employed single parts as the | foundation for his divisions, it has, nevertheless, gained the ' greatest success; firstly, in consequence of its being carried out consistently, and secondly, by its nomenclature of natural ' bodies, which has become extremely imj)ortant, and at which we must here briefly glance. Before Linnmus’ time, many vain attempts had been made to throw light upon the endless chaos of different animal and vegetable forms (then known) by adoptmg for them suitable names and groupings; but LinnEeus, by a happy hit, succeeded in accomplishing this imjaortant and difficult task, when he established the so-called “binary nomenclature” The binary nomenclature, or the two-fold designation, as Linnmus first established it, is still universally applied by all zoologists and botanists, and will, no doubt, maintain itself, for a long time to come, with undiminished authority.

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