288 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



of the rudest tribes, in the earliest legends, poetry, 

 and literature of nations, pines and oaks, roses and 

 violets, the olive and the vine, and the thousand 

 other productions of the earth, have a place, and 

 are spoken of in a manner which assumes, that in 

 such kinds of natural objects, permanent and infal- 

 lible distinctions had been observed and universally 

 recognized. 



For a long period, it was not suspected that 

 any ambiguity or confusion could arise from the use 

 of such terms ; and when such inconveniences did 

 occur, (as even in early times they did,) men were 

 far from divining that the proper remedy was the 

 construction of a science of classification. The loose 

 and insecure terms of the language of common life 

 retained their place in botany, long after their de- 

 fects were severely felt: for instance, the vague 

 and unscientific distinction of vegetables into trees, 

 shrubs, and herbs, kept its ground till the time of 

 Linnaeus. 



While it was thus imagined that the identification 

 of a plant, by means of its name, might properly be 

 trusted to the common uncultured faculties of the 

 mind, and to what we may call the instinct of lan- 

 guage, all the attention and study which were 

 bestowed on such objects, were naturally employed 

 in learning and thinking upon such circumstances 

 respecting them as were supplied by any of the 

 common channels through which knowledge and 

 opinion flow into men's minds. 



