CHAPTER VI

LINNÆUS AND SCIENTIFIC NATURAL HISTORY

We turn now from the purely anatomical side to consider the parallel development of the classification of animals and of plants. Descriptive natural history reached a very low level in the early Christian centuries, and remained there throughout the Middle Ages. The return to the writings of Aristotle was the first influence tending to lift it to the position from which it had fallen. After the decline of ancient civilization there was a period in which the writers of classical antiquity were not read. Not only were the writings of the ancient philosophers neglected, but so also were those of the literary men as well, the poets, the story-tellers, and the historians. As related in