Although meticulous, the classification of Linnaeus served merely as an identification manual; it was based on phenetics and did not regard evolutionary relationships among species. It assumed that plant species were given by God and that what remained for humans was to recognise them and use them (a Christian reformulation of the "scala naturae" or "Great Chain of Being"). Linnaeus was quite aware that the arrangement of species in the "Species Plantarum" was not a natural system, i.e. did not express relationships. However he did present some ideas of plant relationships elsewhere.