THE BASIS OF PLANT CLASSIFICATION 



41 



Fig. 20. — Portrait of Andrea Cesalpino. 



series of commentaries on the antique authors, becoming more and more 



corrupted and ignorant as time 



went on. The urge of intellectual 



curiosity was away from Nature 



towards the spiritual and the un- 

 seen. Theology, logic and rhetoric 



reigned supreme in the medieval 



mind, while the study of Nature 



was confined to inferior minds 



whose objects were wholly utili- 

 tarian. 



The first break in the clouds 



came with Albert von Bollstadt 



(i 193-1280), known as Albertus 



Magnus, " Doctor L^niversalis," 



a man of great eminence whose 



chief claim to our notice as a 



botanist was that he reintroduced 



the study of Aristotle in preference 



to Pliny, and so brought back the 



idea of objective reasoning into 



natural science. Not until the Renaissance, however, did this bear fruit, 



when Andrea Cesalpino (15 19- 

 1603) (Fig. 20) produced the 

 first work of modern times 

 which can be called truly 

 scientific, in that he once more 

 set out to discover a reasoned 

 classification of plants which 

 had a purely intellectual pur- 

 pose. Fi:om him we may date 

 scientific classification as a 

 study, and he was directly 

 inspired by the Aristotelean 

 philosophy. Botany as a science 

 now parts company with the 

 medical study of herbs. We 

 must mention, however, the 

 company of herbalists, contem- 

 poraries of Cesalpino, who, 

 although they marked no philo- 

 sophical advance, imbued 

 botanical study with the Re- 

 naissance principle of first- 

 hand inquiry. They belonged 



to various nations, and we need only mention Brunfels (1464-1534), Fuchs 



!^il";<Hd2M^* 



Fig. 21. — Portrait of John Gerard, taken from the 

 title page of his " Great Herbal." 



