WB

INTRODUCTION.

E now arrive at that study which offers the most copious and complete example of the sciences of classification, I mean Botany. And in this case, we have before us a branch of knowledge of which we may say, more properly than of any of the sciences which we have reviewed since Astronomy, that it has been constantly advancing, more or less rapidly, from the infancy of the human race to the present day. One of the reasons of this resemblance in the fortunes of two studies so widely dissimilar, is to be found in a simplicity of principle which they have in common; the ideas of Likeness and Difference, on which the knowledge of plants depends, are, like the ideas of Space and Time, which are the foundation of astronomy, readily apprehended with clearness and precision, even without any peculiar culture of the intellect. But another reason why, in the history of Botany, as in that of Astronomy, the progress of knowledge forms an unbroken line from the earliest times, is precisely the great difference of the kind of knowledge which has been attained in the two cases. In Astronomy, the discovery of general truths began at an early period of civilization; in Botany, it has hardly yet begun; and thus, in each of these departments of study, the lore of the ancient is homogeneous with that of the modern times, though in the one case it is science, in the other, the absence of science, which pervades all ages. The resemblance of the form of their history arises from the diversity of their materials.

I shall not here dwell further upon this subject, but proceed to trace rapidly the progress of Systematic Botany, as the classificatory science is usually denominated, when it is requisite to distinguish between that and Physiological Botany. My own imperfect acquaintance with this study admonishes me not to venture into its details, further than my purpose absolutely requires. I trust that, by taking my views principally from writers who are generally allowed to possess the best insight into the science, I may be able to draw the larger features of its history with tolerable correctness; and if I succeed in this, I shall attain an object of great importance in my general scheme.

THE

CHAPTER I.

IMAGINARY KNOWLEDGE OF PLANTS.

HE apprehension of such differences and resemblances as those by which we group together and discriminate the various kinds of plants and animals, and the appropriation of words to mark and convey the resulting notions, must be presupposed, as essential to the very beginning of human knowledge. In whatever manner we imagine man to be placed on the earth by his Creator, these processes must be conceived to be, as our Scriptures represent them, contemporaneous with the first exertion of reason, and the first use of speech. If we were to indulge ourselves in framing a hypothetical account of the origin of language, we should probably assume as the first-formed words, those which depend on the visible likeness or unlikeness of objects; and should arrange as of subsequent formation, those terms which imply, in the mind, acts of wider combination and higher abstraction. At any rate, it is certain that the names of the kinds of vegetables and animals are very abundant even in the most uncivilized stages of man's career. Thus we are informed1 that the inhabitants of New Zealand have a distinct name of every tree and plant in their island, of which there are six or seven hundred or more different kinds. In the accounts of the rudest tribes, in the earliest legends, poetry, and literature of nations, pines and oaks, roses and violets, the olive and the vine, and the thousand other productions of the earth, have a place, and are spoken of in a manner which assumes, that in such kinds of natural objects, permanent and infallible distinctions had been observed and universally recognized.

For a long period, it was not suspected that any ambiguity or con'fusion could arise from the use of such terms; and when such inconveniences did occur, (as even in early times they did,) men were far from divining that the proper remedy was the construction of a science of classification. The loose and insecure terms of the language of common life retained their place in botany, long after their

1 Yate's New Zealand, p. 238.

defects were severely felt: for instance, the vague and unscientific distinction of vegetables into trees, shrubs, and herbs, kept its ground till the time of Linnæus.

While it was thus imagined that the identification of a plant, by means of its name, might properly be trusted to the common uncultured faculties of the mind, and to what we may call the instinct of language, all the attention and study which were bestowed on such objects, were naturally employed in learning and thinking upon such circumstances respecting them as were supplied by any of the common channels through which knowledge and opinion flow into men's minds.

The reader need hardly be reminded that in the earlier periods of man's mental culture, he acquires those opinions on which he loves to dwell, not by the exercise of observation subordinate to reason; but, far more, by his fancy and his emotions, his love of the marvellous, his hopes and fears. It cannot surprise us, therefore, that the earliest lore concerning plants which we discover in the records of the past, consists of mythological legends, marvellous relations, and extraordinary medicinal qualities. To the lively fancy of the Greeks, the Narcissus, which bends its head over the stream, was originally a youth who in such an attitude became enamored of his own beauty : the hyacinth, on whose petals the notes of grief were traced (A I, A I), recorded the sorrow of Apollo for the death of his favorite Hyacinthus the beautiful lotus of India, which floats with its splendid flower on the surface of the water, is the chosen seat of the goddess Lackshmi, the daughter of Ocean. In Egypt, too, Osiris swam on a lotus-leaf, and Harpocrates was cradled in one. The lotus-eaters of Homer lost immediately their love of home. Every one knows how easy it would be to accumulate such tales of wonder or religion.

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Those who attended to the effects of plants, might discover in them some medicinal properties, and might easily imagine more; and when the love of the marvellous was added to the hope of health, it is easy to believe that men would be very credulous. We need not dwell upon the examples of this. In Pliny's Introduction to that book of his

2 Lilium martagon.

Ipse suos gemitus foliis inscribit et a 1, a 1,

Flos habet inscriptum funestaque litera ducta est.-OVID.

3 Nelumbium speciosum.

4

Sprengel, Geschichte der Botanik, i. 27.

» Ib. i. 28.

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Natural History which treats of the medicinal virtues of plants, he says, “Antiquity was so much struck with the properties of herbs, that it affirmed things incredible. Xanthus, the historian, says, that a man killed by a dragon, will be restored to life by an herb which he calls balin; and that Thylo, when killed by a dragon, was recovered by the same plant. Democritus asserted, and Theophrastus believed, that there was an herb, at the touch of which, the wedge which the woodman had driven into a tree would leap out again. Though we cannot credit these stories, most persons believe that almost anything might be effected by means of herbs, if their virtues were fully known." How far from a reasonable estimate of the reality of such virtues were the persons who entertained this belief, we may judge from the many superstitious observances which they associated with the gathering and using of medicinal plants. Theophrastus speaks of these;" "The drugsellers and the rhizotomists (root-cutters) tell us," he says, "some things which may be true, but other things which are merely solemn quackery; thus they direct us to gather some plants, standing from the wind, and with our bodies anointed; some by night, some by day, some before the sun falls on them. So far there may be something in their rules. But others are too fantastical and far fetched. It is, perhaps, not absurd to use a prayer in plucking a plant; but they go further than this. We are to draw a sword three times round the mandragora, and to cut it looking to the west: again, to dance round it, and to use obscene language, as they say those who sow cumin should utter blasphemies. Again, we are to draw a line round the black hellebore, standing to the east and praying; and to avoid an eagle either on the right or on the left; for, say they, 'if an eagle be near, the cutter will die in a year.'"

This extract may serve to show the extent to which these imaginations were prevalent, and the manner in which they were looked upon by Theophrastus, our first great botanical author. And we may now consider that we have given sufficient attention to these fables and superstitions, which have no place in the history of the progress of real knowledge, except to show the strange chaos of wild fancies and legends out of which it had to emerge. We proceed to trace the history of the knowledge of plants.

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• Lib. xxv. 5.

7 De Plantis, ix. 9.

8 * Επιτραγῳδοῦντες.

A

CHAPTER II.

UNSYSTEMATIC KNOWLEDGE OF PLANTS.

STEP was made towards the formation of the Science of Plants, although undoubtedly a slight one, as soon as men began to collect information concerning them and their properties, from a love and reverence for knowledge, independent of the passion for the marvellous and the impulse of practical utility. This step was very early made. The "wisdom" of Solomon, and the admiration which was bestowed upon it, prove, even at that period, such a working of the speculative faculty: and we are told, that among other evidences of his being "wiser than all men," "he spake of trees, from the cedartree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall." The father of history, Herodotus, shows us that a taste for natural history had, in his time, found a place in the minds of the Greeks. In speaking of the luxuriant vegetation of the Babylonian plain, he is so far from desiring to astonish merely, that he says, "the blades of wheat and barley are full four fingers wide; but as to the size of the trees which grow from millet and sesame, though I could mention it, I will not; knowing well that those who have not been in that country will hardly believe what I have said already." He then proceeds to describe some remarkable circumstances respecting the fertilization of the date-palms in Assyria.

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This curious and active spirit of the Greeks led rapidly, as we have seen in other instances, to attempts at collecting and systematizing knowledge on almost every subject: and in this, as in almost every other department, Aristotle may be fixed upon, as the representative of the highest stage of knowledge and system which they ever attained. The vegetable kingdom, like every other province of nature, was one of the fields of the labors of this universal philosopher. But though his other works on natural history have come down to us, and are a most valuable monument of the state of such knowledge in his time, his Treatise on Plants is lost. The book De Plantis

1 1 1 Kings iv. 33.

2 Herod. i. 193.