287 



CHAPTER I. 

 IMAGINARY KNOWLEDGE OF PLANTS. 



THE apprehension of such differences and resem- 

 blances as those by which we group together 

 and discriminate the various kinds of plants and 

 animals, and the appropriation of words to mark 

 and convey the resulting notions, must be presup- 

 posed, as essential to the very beginning of human 

 knowledge. In whatever manner we imagine man 

 to be placed on the earth by his Creator, these pro- 

 cesses mnst be conceived to be, as our Scriptures 

 represent them, contemporaneous with the first 

 exertion of reason, and the first use of speech. If 

 we were to indulge ourselves in framing a hypothe- 

 tical account of the origin of language, we should 

 probably assume as the first-formed words, those 

 which depend on the visible likeness or unlikeness 

 of objects; and should arrange as of subsequent 

 formation, those terms which imply, in the mind, 

 acts of wider combination and higher abstraction. 

 At any rate, it is certain that the names of the 

 kinds of vegetables and animals are very abundant 

 even in the most uncivilized stages of man's career. 

 Thus we are informed 1 that the inhabitants of New 

 Zealand have a distinct name of every tree and 

 plant in their island, of which there are six or seven 

 hundred or more different kinds. In the accounts 



1 Yate's New Zealand, p. 238. 



