...those who went before him. [...] The study of natural history, simple, beautiful, and instructive, consists in the collection, arrangement, and exhibition...various productions of the earth. These are divided into the three grand kingdoms of nature, whose boundaries meet together in the Zoophytes [plant-like animals)....

...history," he said in his major work Systema Naturae (1735), "is simple, beautiful, and instructive in the collection, arrangement, and exhibition of the various productions of the earth."32 Linnaeus built upon the Christian idea of the Great Chain of Being to claim the natural world...

...request. He stated his goals plainly: "The study of natural history, simple, beautiful, and instructive, consists in the collection, arrangement, and exhibition of the various productions of earth."3 In the eighteenth century, English scientists were inundated with "productions" being carried...