Catalogue of Fungi (1783) - Page 18

[PREFACE]
...of the lower page and the ground plan of the gills.

IV.

Schaeffer indeed thinks that illustrations alone can illustrate the science of fungi and determine something certain in it, and it must be admitted that with a faithful image present, every doubt is immediately dissipated: but since written works can be communicated much more easily to all lovers of science as well as to posterity, a greater value should be conceded to them, if a constant designation can ever be established by them. Nor does this seem impossible, for although in every animal and vegetable the image contains all characters, neither are those characters manifest by themselves, nor do they carry before them the system, the compendium, and the soul of this knowledge; and written characters, except for the rarest deformations, supported by the system and the philosophy of the parts, paint the idea of things and their abstraction more certainly and more easily. It is evident, therefore, that with the system present in other provinces of the natural kingdom, it will not be denied in this one either. Distinct suborders contribute as much as possible to constructing this, especially in very broad genera, both for easier discovery...

...of the lower side of the page and the ground plan of the gills.

4.

Schäffer is indeed of the opinion that the illustrations alone were capable of explaining the history of fungi and determining something certain in it, and it is certain that every doubt is immediately removed by a faithful painting; but since writings can be handed down to posterity and to all lovers of knowledge much more easily than illustrations, one must assign these a far greater value if it is at all possible to make a certain determination by means of them. And this does not seem impossible at all; for although the illustrations of all animals and plants possess all the marks, they do not by themselves make them known to us, nor lead us immediately to the classification which, in this type of science, spreads spirit and life above all through the overview of the whole. If we exclude the rarer deviations, the written determinations designate the general concepts for us much more easily and surely when they are based on classification and precise knowledge of the parts. One sees, therefore, from this that when classification [exists] in other parts of the natural kingdoms...