368 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



products ; of which one hundred and fifty are English, and are no way 

 distinguished from the exotics by the mode in which they are inserted 

 in the work. 



We shall see, in the next chapter, that when the intellect of Europe 

 began really to apply itself to the observation of nature, the progress 

 towards genuine science soon began to be visible, in this as in other 

 subjects; but before this tendency could operate freely, the history of 

 botany was destined to show, in another instance, how much more 

 grateful to man, even when roused to intelligence and activity, is the 

 study of tradition than the study of nature. When the scholars of 

 Europe had become acquainted with the genuine works of the ancients 

 in the original languages, the pleasure and admiration which they felt, 

 led them to the most zealous endeavors to illustrate and apply what 

 they read. They fell into the error of supposing that the plants 

 described by Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, must be those which 

 grew in their own fields. And thus Ruellius, 86 a French physician, 

 who only travelled in the environs of Paris and Picardy, imagined that 

 he found there the plants of Italy and Greece. The originators of 

 genuine botany in Germany, Brunfels and Tragus (Bock), committed 

 the same mistake ; and hence arose the misapplication of classical 

 names to many genera. The labors of many other learned men took 

 the same direction, of treating the ancient writers as if they alone 

 were the sources of knowledge and truth. 



But the philosophical spirit of Europe was already too vigorous to 

 allow this superstitious erudition to exercise a lasting sway. Leoni- 

 cenus, who taught at Ferrara till he was almost a hundred years old, 

 and died in 1524, 28 disputed, with great freedom, the authority of the 

 Arabian writers, and even of Pliny. He saw, and showed by many 

 examples, how little Pliny himself knew of nature, and how many 

 errors he had made or transmitted. The same independence of 

 thought with regard to other ancient writers, was manifested by other 

 scholars. Yet the power of ancient authority melted away but gra- 

 dually. Thus Antonius Brassavola, who established on the banks of 

 the Po the first botanical garden of modern times, published in 1536, 

 his Examen omnium Simplicium Medicamentorum ; and, as Cuvier 

 lays, 2 ' though he studied plants in nature, his book (written in the 



86 De Natura Stirpium, 1536. 26 Sprengel, i. 252. 



37 Hist, des Sc. Nat. partie ii. 169. 



