THEOPHRASTUS. 1 9 



knowledge useful to mankind. This Is especially 

 noticed in another work on the causes of plants, 

 of which six parts remain to the present day. It 

 is really a work on gardening and farming, with 

 a good deal of pure and applied knowledge on 

 botany. It is not everybody, nowadays, that can 

 combine what is scientific, that is to say, exact 

 knowledge, with useful and applied knowledge. Too 

 frequently the scientific botanist does not teach 

 gardening or farming ; and certainly, as a rule, the 

 writers on these last subjects are not scientific 

 botanists, and, indeed, they are often of a very 

 different kind of mind. It has been said of the 

 works of Theophrastus that there is much valu- 

 able matter in them that deserves the attention 

 of the botanist, and that a very little knowledge 

 of botany will enable the reader to separate the 

 chaff from the wheat. 



So noted was the learning of this great man 

 on other subjects, that his good work on plants 

 remained the text-book of centuries ; and, in fact, 

 little or no satisfactory knowledge about plants, 

 beyond that given to us by Aristoteles and Theo- 

 phrastus, was discovered for many centuries. 



The fall of Demetrius from power removed the 

 protector of Theophrastus, and the ignorant anti- 

 educationalist party of the day revived their per- 

 secutions. In the year 305 B.C. a political noodle 

 managed to frame a law, and to get it passed by the 

 ruling body of the day, which forbade all philo- 

 sophers under pain of death to give any publie 

 instruction without permission of the State. 



