Commemoration of Carl Linnaeus end of his life in 1778, Carl Linnaeus had become one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe, the first civilian in Sweden to be dubbed a knight of the Order of the Polar Star (1753) and ennobled as Carl von Linné (1761). The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote during Linnaeus' lifetime: "I know no greater man on earth." The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe would later write: "With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly." Swedish author August Strindberg wrote: "Linnaeus was in reality
Carl Linnaeus Broberg thought Linnaeus was trying to offer a natural explanation and demystify the world of superstition. Linnaeus tried to debunk some of these creatures, as he had with the hydra; regarding the purported remains of dragons, Linnaeus wrote that they were either derived from lizards or rays. For "Homo troglodytes" he asked the Swedish East India Company to search for one, but they did not find any signs of its existence. "Homo lar" has since been reclassified as "Hylobates lar", the lar gibbon. In the first edition of "", Linnaeus subdivided the human species into four varieties based on continent