304 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



freely, the history of botany was destined to show, in 

 another instance, how much more grateful to man, 

 even when roused to intelligence and activity, is the 

 study of tradition than the study of nature. When 

 the scholars of Europe had become acquainted with 

 the genuine works of the ancients in the original 

 languages, the pleasure and admiration which they 

 felt, led them to the most zealous endeavours to 

 illustrate and apply what they read. They fell into 

 the errour of supposing that the plants described 

 by Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, must be those 

 which grew in their own fields. And thus Ruel- 

 lius* 5 , a French physician, who only travelled in the 

 environs of Paris and in Picardy, imagined that he 

 found there the plants of Italy and Greece. The 

 originators of genuine botany in Germany, Brunfels 

 and Tragus (Bock), committed the same mistake : 

 and hence arose the misapplication of classical 

 names to many genera. The labours of many other 

 learned men took the same direction, of treating 

 the ancient writers as if they alone were the sources 

 of knowledge and truth. 



But the philosophical spirit of Europe was al- 

 ready too vigorous to allow this superstitious erudi- 

 tion to exercise a lasting sway. Leonicenus, who 

 taught at Ferrara till he was almost a hundred years 

 old, and died in 1524* 5 , disputed, with great free- 

 dom, the authority of the Arabian writers, and even 

 of Pliny. He saw, and showed by many examples, 



25 De Natura Stirpium, 1536. * 6 Sprengel, i. 252. 



