Note 32 — Chapter II · Artificial Systems and Terminology of Organs from Cesalpino to Linnaeus. 1583-1760. (continued 2)

It would not be difficult to prove that the doctrine of the constancy of species is properly a conclusion from scholasticism, and ultimately from the Platonic doctrine of ideas, and was therefore assumed as self-evident before the time of Linnaeus, who only gave it a more distinct and conscious expression; his arguments from experience are without force. The strength of the dogma lies in its relation to the platonico-scholastic philosophy, which the systematists followed, more or less consciously, up to quite recent times.