LECT, I.] AND PROGRESS OF BOTANY, 9 



ences then known in Europe, for refuge into Asia. 

 There, however, it obtained merely an asylum ; ( 

 few or no discoveries were made ; and the works 

 of Galen, Oribasius, /Etius, /Egineta, and other 

 Asiatic writers, as well as those of Mesue, Sera- 

 pius, Razis, Avicenna, and the other Arabians, con- 

 tain little more than the names of the plants de- 

 scribed by the primitive authors. 



It is melancholy to look back upon the state 

 of Europe during that period which has been 

 justly denominated the dark age. A dismal gloom 

 enveloped the whole of the civilized world: ig- 

 norance, superstition, and barbarism tyrannized 

 over learning and genius ; knowledge of any kind 

 was to be acquired only by searching among the 

 rubbish of the schools and monasteries ; fabulous 

 legends supplied the place of truth ; and the de- 

 ceptions of a crafty priesthood debased at the 

 same time that they enslaved the minds of men. 

 During this long and melancholy course of years, 

 the few scattered writings that appeared on Na- 

 tural History were the production of monks, and 

 compiled from old authors : but even these were 

 cloaked in an almost unintelligible jargon ; and 

 it was not till the middle of the sixteenth century, 

 that the sun of science again burst this thick 

 cloud, and shed its rays upon the north of Europe. 

 At this period Botany, which was exactly in 

 the same state as the ancients left it, could not be 



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