PREFACE

...than a more certain notion. Thus, every step from the highest genus to the lowest, or from the order down to the variety, is strengthened and becomes more secure, with Nature herself persuading and assisting; and the spectacle that emerges from the multifaceted, artificial arrangement of the Divine is far more beautiful than descriptions that are coldly applied, long-winded, and gathered by the thousands. This seems to me to be lacking in many works, in that I find either no geometric characters, or those that are unnatural, vague, or too artificial. Linnaeus himself, that greatest man whose merits are greater than the centuries, occupied with his gigantic work of investigation, did not direct his eagle-eyed vision with equal ardor into every region, but here and there, accompanied by Homer a reference to the adage "Even Homer nods," implying that even the greatest scholars make mistakes, he let his ether-seeking wings, exhausted by their flight, sink to the earth. If I am not mistaken, this manifests itself especially in the amphibians, in the worms, and in the fungi, where labor is often more prominent than genius. Provoked by the excessive amplifications of species through varieties practiced by the ancients, he compressed everything as concisely as he could into dense masses, often inextricable to a reader unacquainted with his art. Thus, in the vast family of the Agarici mushrooms/gilled fungi, he introduces no subdivisions, even though they show themselves to be most natural, and many of the depicted fungi cannot in any way be assigned to the species of that great man. If I recall correctly, the illustrious Baekius touches on these specifically in his panegyric on Linnaeus, and he thinks that many naturalists will not find the fungi of Linnaeus truly retained in these, and will proclaim them as new; nevertheless, although I would willingly abandon a cherished opinion if taught better, I hardly hope that will happen in this place. Moved by these things, I have followed the same path, though perhaps with less fortune, as Laurentius Viennensis...