At a natural method Tournefort made no more attempt than did Linnæus. But of the principles and purposes of a good artificial classification he had an entirely clear comprehension; and of such a classification of then known plants he gave an elaborate and imposing exemplification. Of what a "natural system" would be, if one could attain to it, Tournefort, like his Swedish successor, had a conception rather mystical or theological than scientific; it would be an arrangement of animals and plants according to the "natural" or "essential" species established by "the Author of Nature." But for his actual scheme[1] he recognizes plainly that the primary criteria are the practical ones of simplicity and convenience. A genus or species, for botanical purposes, is "simply the whole group of plants that have a character in common which essentially distinguishes them from all others"; and in the selection of the characters by means of which the division is to be made we may ignore metaphysical considerations. Tournefort observes (apparently reflecting upon Cesalpino): "Let no one say that, since the sole end of nature is the production of fruit, we ought to consider the fruit as the noblest part of the plant. The intentions of nature are not in question here, nor yet the nobility of the several parts; what concerns us is to find means of distinguishing different kinds of plants with the greatest possible clearness. If the least of their parts served this purpose better than those which are called the noblest, it would be necessary to prefer the former." Tournefort's actual classification, based upon the characters of both flowers and fruit, realized these ideals of serviceableness, convenience and consistency somewhat imperfectly. But it was the ruling one in the science for nearly half a century; and, accompanied as it was by careful descriptions of an immense number of species, it furnished a model upon which Linnæus needed only to improve.
The Swedish naturalist's simplification of nomenclature was not only approximated, but acually anticipated, by at least one of his predecessors. As Professor Underwood has pointed out, the binomial system of naming plants was used by Cornut in his "Canadensis Plantarum Historia" as early as 1635.[2] Later Tournefort, a botanist of greater eminence and influence, though he followed this example only partially, insisted emphatically upon the need for a reform and simplification of nomenclature. So far as the names of genera are concerned, he observes that "one ought to make a very great difference between naming plants and describing them"; he remarks that "nothing is so unfavorable to the reformation of botany as the habit which
- ↑ "Elemens de la Botanique," 1694; the Latin version of this, "Institutiones Rei Herbariæ," with some alterations, appeared in 1700.
- ↑ "Underwood in Torreya, October, 1903, and in Popular Science Monthly, June, 1907. A brief and often binomial nomenclature is ascribed by Bonnier to Belon (d. 1574), whose work I have not seen.
