188 A GENERAL VIEW OF THE 



terior to that of Pliny's Natural History ; but, during a part of their 

 lives, these venerable Naturalists were cotemporaries. Each of 

 them recognizes Teucrium as the established appellation of a plant 

 which their predecessors had delineated, and also administered as a 

 medicine. Very little difference occurs in their accounts of its cha- 

 racters and properties : of the two, the Greek physician discourses 

 on his subject with the greatest brevity. His vegetable is not ob- 

 scurely made a Germander : with Pliny, as has been noted previ- 

 ously, it is either a Germander or a Spleenivort : he abstains from 

 proposing a distinction between them, as if his own views had been 

 undetermined. Even through the veil of this uncertainty, however, 

 the fact may be discerned, that an efficacious wild vegetable has 

 been valued as the Herb of Teucer for more than three thousand 

 years ; and it is a good taste whereby that Exquisite Sagacity which 

 affects to know all things, and would reform every thing, has hi- 

 therto been restrained from out-stretching its desecrating hands to 

 eradicate from the rolls of phytological glossography the name of an 

 herb whereby the student of Nature's excellencies is reminded that* 

 the Son of Telamon was endowed with a disposition to promote the 

 advances of humanity and intelligence. 



A GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECTS OF 

 NATURAL HISTORY.* 



In commencing this Lecture, which is to include " A General 

 View of the Subjects of Natural History," I may remark that Na- 

 ture is a term comprehending all that exists so as to be perceptible 

 by the human senses, without being planned by human contrivance 

 or executed by human labour; and in this its general meaning Na- 

 ture stands opposed to Art. 



The lessons of Nature abound every where : they come to us in 

 the beams of the sun, in the cloud, and in the shower ; the ground 

 we tread upon, the sky, the ocean, and the gentle air which fans the 

 cheek, are all pregnant with instruction. Before any addition can 

 be made to the accommodation or comfort of mankind, we must go 



* Being a Lecture delivered before the "Worcestershire Natural History 

 Society, on the 3rd of October, 1837, by W. Addison, Esq., F.L.S. 



