How did Carolus Linnaeus explain the similarities among members of a species?

Carolus Linnaeus explained the similarities among members of a species by proposing that they shared a common origin. Specifically, he believed that individuals within a species were similar in form because they were descended from the same parental pair created by God at the beginning of the world.1

This perspective reflected the prevailing view of his time, which emphasized the fixity of species. While Linnaeus developed a hierarchical classification system that grouped organisms based on their morphological features—what he termed "natural characters"—he did not attribute these groupings to evolutionary relationships. It was not until the work of Charles Darwin that biological similarity was scientifically explained through the mechanism of common descent.12