vi. PREFACE. 



writings arc published that they may be undfcr* 

 &tood ; and in this branch, I shall always suppose 

 he writes best, who is to be understood most uni- 

 versal! v Now so far are we from having had this 

 point in view in botany, that more new and more 

 strange words have been introduced into it, than 

 into all the sciences together : and so remarkable 

 istheSwLDE before mentioned, Lisn^us, for this, 

 that a good scholar, nay the best scholar in the 

 world, shall not be able to understand three lines 

 together in his best writings, although they are 

 written in latin, a language in which he is ever so 

 familiar. The author has not been at the pains 

 to explain his new words Ijimself, but refers hii 

 reader to nature; he bids him seek them in the 

 iiowers, where he found them. 



We sec, that the most curious botanists have not 

 concerned themselves about the virtues of plants at 

 all ; that many of the others who have written 

 well on plants, have thought it no part of their 

 subject ; let us examine the others ; those who 

 are of less repute. If we look into the English 

 Herbal* in particular, we find them large upon 

 that subject ; indeed they are too large by much. 

 They say so many things, that we know not which 

 of them to credit ; and therefore in the uncertainty, 

 we credit none of them. There is not the most 

 trifling herb, which they do not make a remedy for 

 almost all diseases. We may therefore as well take 

 one plant for any case as another ; and the whole of 

 their labours amount to this, that the English herbs 

 are full of virtues, butthat they know not what they 

 are. 



When knowledge is perplexed with unintelligi- 

 ble terms, and the memory of the student con- 

 founded wilh a multiplicity of names ; when the 

 ignorant only, who have written concerning plants, 



