10 SKETCH OF THE RISK [LECT. I. 



considered any tiling more than a catalogue or list 

 of the names of about one thousand plants : for, 

 although the ancients were great observers, yet 

 they did not make much use of their observations. 

 They looked at Nature rather with the eye of the 

 poet than of the philosopher ; and,, in giving the 

 reins to imagination, were too powerfully charmed 

 with her more striking beauty and sublimity, to 

 descend to a calm and patient investigation of the 

 causes of the effects which they observed. Thus, 

 they knew that the farina of the male Palm was 

 necessary to fecundate the female; but from this 

 fact they drew no inference as to the difference of 

 sex in plants : they grafted, but knew not the cause 

 of the union of the graft with the stock : they had 

 even observed the spontaneous movements of some 

 plants, but did not endeavour to discover the 

 reasons of the phenomena. Such was the state of 

 the science at the revival of learning, when it made 

 its first step towards improvement, in the repre- 

 sentation of plants by wood cuts * ; and this aid 

 to the study of Botany was soon adopted by Brun- 

 fels, a physician, at Bern, who may justly be re- 

 garded as the restorer of the science in Europe -f-. 



* An Italian Flora, which was printed at Padua, in 1485, 

 is supposed to be the earliest book on Botany that was illus- 

 trated by plates. 



f His work is entitled Historia Plantarum. The platee are 

 not very accurate ; but this is not much to be wondered at, 

 when we reflect that he died in 1534. 



