PHYSIOGNOMY OF NATURE. 1Q5 



ready acquainted with a great variety of vegetable forms. 

 The intimate connection which existed among the different 

 Buddhist sacerdotal establishments contributed its influence 

 in this respect. Temples, cloisters, and burying-places were 

 surrounded by gardens, adorned with exotic trees, and covered 

 by variegated flowers of different forms. Indian plants were 

 early diffused over China, Corea, and Nipon. Siebold, whose 

 writings give a comprehensive view of all matters referring to 

 Japan, was the first to draw attention to the cause of the mixt 

 ure of the floras of remotely-separated Buddhist lands.* 



The rich abundance of characteristic vegetable forms pre- 

 sented by the present age to scientific observation and to land- 

 scape painting, must act as a powerful incentive to trace the 

 sources which have yielded us this increased knowledge and 

 enjoyment of nature. The enumeration of these sources must 

 be reserved for the history of the contemplation of nature in 

 the succeeding portion of this work. Here my object has been 

 to depict, in the reflection of the external world on the mental 

 activity and the feelings of mankind, those means which, in 

 the progress of civilization, have exercised so marked and an- 

 imated an influence on the study of nature. Notwithstand- 

 ing a certain freedom of development of the several parts, the 

 primitive force of organization binds all animal and vegetable 

 forms to fixed and constantly-recurring types, determining, in 

 every zone, the character that peculiarly appertains to it, or 

 the physiognomy of nature. We may therefore regard it as 

 one of the most precious fruits of European civilization, that 

 it is almost every where permitted to man, by the cultivation 

 and arrangement of exotic plants, by the charm of landscape 

 painting, and by the inspired power of language, to procure a 

 substitute for familiar scenes during the period of absence, or 

 to receive a portion of that enjoyment from nature which is 

 yielded by actual contemplation during long and not unfre- 

 quently dangerous journeys through the interior of distant 

 continents. 



* Ph. Fr. von Siebold, Kruidkundige Naamlijst van Japansche en Chi- 

 neesche Planten, 1844, p. 4. What a difference do we not find on com 

 paring the variety of vegetable forms cultivated for so many centuries 

 past in Eastern Asia, with those enumerated by Columella, in his mea- 

 ger poem De Cultn Hortorum (v. 95-105, 174-176, 225-271, 295-306), 

 and to which the celebrated garland-weavers of Athens were confined! 

 It was not until the time of the Ptolemies that in Egypt, and especially 

 in Alexandria, the more skillful gardeners appear to have devoted any 

 great attention to variety, particularly for winter cultivation. (Com- 

 pare Athen., v., p. 196.) 



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