Download PDF

6
INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY.
whose abilities were superior to their own, caused that city
to become the focus of literature and science; and the
writings produced in that short space of time still remain
the noblest monuments of the powers of the human mind,
for they have commanded the admiration of succeeding
ages, and left nothing for future writers to do but to imi-
tate, as far as is possible, their excellencies. In the schools
which were then established, that of the peripatetics, whose
founder was Aristotle, was the one that, cultivating natural
history, of course merits most notice in a history of botany.
Aristotle, the son of a perfumer, who were in those days
the dispensers of compound medicines prescribed by lay
practitioners, had, from his well-merited reputation, beei^
and, on his
raised to be the tutor of Alexander the Great ;
pupil becoming possessed of the treasures collected by the
Persian monarch, he formed the project, among other vast
schemes of literary renown, of writing a complete history
of natural substances from actual observation, or the relation
of the numerous collectors which his influence over
his former pupil enabled him to employ; and took the
zoological and meteorological parts under his ov/n immediate
care ; and his History of Animals, although little regarded
in the schools engaged in teaching the elements of
knowledge, is a splendid monument of his abilities.
The mineralogical and botanical part of this general
history of nature was entrusted to his pupil Theophrastus,
who also succeeded to the professorial chair in the public
school. A work of Theophrastus on minerals, and two on
plants, have,
descended to
after a very narrow escape from oblivion,
our times. He treats his subject generally
in a philosophical manner. In his book on the causes of
plants, he considered the propagation, culture, qualities,
and uses of plants in general ; but very few are described
by him in a particular manner, as he supposes the reader
to be either acquainted with them, or to be informed by
a master. In his larger work, entitled, the History of
Plants, he mentions about five hundred plants, and begins
with the organization, generation, and propagation of
vegetables. In the third and fourth books he goes on to
treat largely upon trees ; then follows his observations
upon timber and choice of it. The sixth book is on shrubs,
thorny plants, roses, and other ornamental plants usually
cultivated in gardens. In the seventh he treats upon
kitchen- garden plants, and those that grow wild. In the
eighth upon grain of difierenl kiiid^, upon which he is very