INTRODUCTION. 1Q 



followed by that of Gerard at London, established 

 at the latest in 15Q6. 



From this memorable period of improvement, in Tempora- 

 which the Hurculean labours of the Bauhins, as $ botany. 

 well as the arrangements of Caesalpinus had not only 

 advanced the study of vegetables to an unprecedent- 

 ed height, but seemed also to have ensured its con- 

 tinued and unremitted progress ; botany, as repre- 

 sented by botanical historians, appears notwithstand- 

 ing to have languished for a period of nearly half a 

 century ; which might perhaps have been owing to 

 the impossibility of outdoing the Bauhins in their 

 own line of investigation, and upon their own prin- 

 ciples. But if the progress of the study of vege- 

 tables was thus suspended in as much as relates to 

 the collecting, describing, and figuring of plants, 

 there is, at least, one view of the subject in which it 

 was most essentially advanced ; and that is in the 

 revival, if I may not absolutely say original intro- Revival of 

 duction, of phytological investigation, which had 

 been but just attempted by Theophrastus, and con- search 

 signed to the most culpable neglect by succeeding 

 botanists for a period of nearly two thousand years. 



The revival of this study was probably owning to 

 the new impulse and new direction communicated 

 to the spirit of philosophical inquiry by that great 

 and illustrious luminary of science Francis Bacon, 

 Lord Verulam, who having explored and developed 

 the true foundations of human knowledge with a 

 sagacity and penetration unparalled in the history 



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