[f. Gr. σύστημα, -ατ. SYSTEM + -IST.] One who constructs, or adheres to, a system, esp. a system of classification in natural history; a classifying naturalist.
In Kirby’s use, an advocate of a natural in preference to an artificial system of classification (opp. to METHODIST 2 b).
1700. S. Parker, Six Philos. Ess., 46. Your peremptory Systematist boldly distorts Nature.
1753. Chambers’ Cycl. Supp., Systematists, in botany, those authors, whose works in this science are principally employed about the arranging plants into certain orders, classes, or genera.
1836. Penny Cycl., V. 248/2. Grew … was no systematist; it was reserved for another Englishman [sc. John Ray] to discover the true principles of classification.
1840. Whewell, Philos. Induct. Sci. (1847), II. 557. The Fishes, in which province Cuvier has … been the great systematist.
1902. Edin. Rev., Oct., 370. Kaspar Bauhin (1550–1624), the first great botanical systematist.
