THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



NATURAL HISTORY, 



MAY, 18^8, 



INTRODUCTION. 



In order to point out the agreeableness and utility of the 

 study of Natural History, we shall commence by taking it 

 for granted, that all knowledge is pleasure as well as power. 

 If any man doubts this, we refer him to the first page of Mr. 

 Brougham's Preliminary Discourse on the Objects, Advantages, 

 and Pleasures of Science. In this Introduction, we shall chiefly 

 endeavour to show that the pleasure and the power obtained 

 will be in direct proportion to the labour bestowed. 



To know any thing does not consist in having merely seen 

 it, or in recollecting its name; no naturalist can be said to 

 know a plant, unless he knows its rank in the vegetable king- 

 dom, its structure, habits of growth, the climates and countries 

 in which it abounds, its history in its wild state, and, if a 

 cultivated plant, its domestic history, its culture, properties, 

 and uses. 



The tulip and the ranunculus are known to every body, 

 and are deservedly two of the most admired productions of 

 professional florists. There is no child who cannot name 

 them at sight, and no gardener who does not know a great 

 deal about their culture : but how few, among either gardeners 

 or botanical amateurs, know that these two plants, however 

 nearly they may be allied as fine flowers, are very different 

 in point of rank in the scale of vegetable creation ; that they 

 belong to separate fundamental divisions of plants, the or- 

 ganisation of the one being much more perfect than that of the 

 other; and that they display wholly different characters of 

 structure and physiological economy, from the seminal em- 

 bryo through every stage to the perfect plant! -Thus the 

 ranunculus, belonging to a division of plants characterised 



Vol. I. — No. 1 . b 



