ABSTRACT
Much of eighteenth-century natural history, leading up to and culminating in the great work of Buffon and Linnaeus, was devoted to the question of classification, or systematics. There were two different kinds of approach taken to this task, distinguished as systems – outstanding amongst which was the system of Linnaeus – and methods, or rather method, since there was essentially only one. In both cases it was imagined that a more or less perfect continuity existed between species, so that they might in principle all be laid out across a twodimensional surface or table. Every space in this grid would ultimately be filled, or if there were gaps, these would signify the places of species which were not yet found, or alternatively which had disappeared in some historical catastrophe.
