HISTORY OF BOTANY. 5 



for the purpose of being initiated into the Egyptian mysteries, is 

 supposed to have commenced some remarks on the phytology of 

 vegetation. 



10. Whether Thales did positively enter into any 

 theory of vegetable physiology, we are not assured ; but 

 it is very certain, that the discussions of his immediate 

 successors and of the earlier leaders of both the Ionian 

 and Italian schools, were frequently ornamented with 

 some very nice and subtil topics of phytological inves- 

 tigation. 



The philosophers of this period, (A. C. 650) accustomed to rest 

 too much upon genius and reflection and careless of facts, advanced 

 the most absurd doctrines imaginable. They taught, that plants 

 possess a sensible and reasonable soul, have desires and wishes, and 

 are capable of experiencing pleasure and pain. Pythagoras, the 

 celebrated sage of Samos, is said to have prohibited his disciples 

 from the use of beans, on account of a supposed identity of origin 

 between beans and human flesh. Anaxagoras, of Clazomene, main- 

 tained, that the seed of all vegetables are lodged in the atmosphere, 

 from whence they descend with the rain and dew into the earth, 

 where they miugle with the soil and spring up into plants. Empe- 

 docles of Agrigentum, and Democritus of Abdera, also, asserted 

 very singular hypotheses concerning vegetable life. Such were 

 some of the very whimsical opinions of these learned men ; it is 

 therefore very plain, they could not have been founded on accurate 

 observations, and much less on the basis of any thing like philoso- 

 phical experiments. 



11. Immediately following the philosophers whom 

 we have just considered, the science of botany met with 

 a most liberal and fostering protector, in the venerable 

 father of medicine, Hippocrates; but it does not seem, 

 that even under the auspices of so great and dignified an 

 example, the study of botany made any very great 

 advancement towards a system of phytology. 



B2 



