but before Linnaeus, systems of classification were often highly whimsical. 而在林奈之前，分类体系是极其随意的。

Animals might be categorized by whether they were wild or domesticated, terrestrial or aquatic, large or small, 动物的分类标准可以是：野的还是家的，陆生的或水生的，大的还是小的，

even whether they were thought handsome and noble or of no consequence. 甚至它们被认为是漂亮和高贵的还是无足轻重的。

Buffon arranged his animals by their utility to man. 布丰根据动物对人的用途大小来进行分类，

Anatomical considerations barely came into it. 几乎不考虑解剖学上的特点。

Linnaeus made it his life's work to rectify this deficiency by classifying all that was alive according to its physical attributes. 林奈按照生理特征来进行分类，把纠正上述不足作为自己毕生的事业。

Taxonomy — which is to say the science of classification — has never looked back. 分类学——即分类的科学——再也没有走回头路。

It all took time, of course. 这一切当然都要花时间。

The first edition of his great Systema Naturae in 1735 was just fourteen pages long. 他的大作《自然体系》在1735年的第一版只有14页。

But it grew and grew until by the twelfth edition — the last that Linnaeus would live to see — it extended to three volumes and 2,300 pages. 但是，它越来越长，越来越长，到了第12版——林奈活着见到的最后一版——已经扩展到3卷，长达2300页。

In the end he named or recorded some 13,000 species of plant and animal. 最后，他命名或记录了大约13000种植物和动物。

Other works were more comprehensive, 别的著作覆盖面还要广泛，

John Ray's three-volume Historia Generalis Plantarum in England, completed a generation earlier, covered no fewer than 18,625 species of plants alone, 约翰·雷在一代人以前完成的3卷本英格兰的《植物通史》仅植物就包括了不少于l8625种，

but what Linnaeus had that no one else could touch were consistency, order, simplicity, and timeliness. 但是，林奈有着没有人可以相比的地方：连贯、有序、简洁、及时。