UNSYSTEMATIC KNOWLEDGE. 305 



how little Pliny himself knew of nature, and how 

 many errours he had made or transmitted. The 

 same independence of thought with regard to othe^r 

 ancient writers, was manifested by other scholars. 

 Yet the power of ancient authority melted away 

 but gradually. Thus Antonius Brassavola, who esta- 

 blished on the banks of the Po the first botanical 

 garden of modern times, published in 1536, his 

 Examen omnium Simplicium Medicamentorum ; 

 and, as Cuvier says 27 , though he studied plants in 

 nature, his book (written in the Platonic form of 

 dialogue,) has still the character of a commentary 

 on the ancients. 



The Germans appear to have been the first to 

 liberate themselves from this thraldom, and to pub- 

 lish works founded mainly on actual observation. 

 The first of the botanists who had this great merit 

 is Otho Brunfels of Mentz, whose work, Herlarum 

 Vivce Icones, appeared in 1530. It consists of two 

 volumes in folio, with wood-cuts; and in 1532, a 

 German edition was published. The plants which 

 it contains are given without any arrangement, and 

 thus he belongs to the period of unsystematic know- 

 ledge. Yet the progress towards the formation of 

 a system manifested itself so immediately in the 

 series of German botanists to which he belongs, 

 that we might with almost equal propriety transfer 

 him to the history of that progress ; to which we 

 now proceed. 



27 Hist, des Sc. Nat. partie ii. 169. 

 VOL. III. X 



