HISTORY OP BOTANY. 221 



the first of the Greek writers who composed a treatise on the proper- 

 ties of plants. A disciple of his, Empedocles, seemed to have some 

 correct ideas of vegetable physiology. He called the seeds the eggs 

 of plants ; the roots, their heads and mouths ; and considered that 

 the two sexes were combined in the same individual. 



Several men of the name of Hippocrates wrote upon the medici- 

 nal properties of plants ; but their descriptions, being destitute of 

 system, are vague, and cannot be applied to plants with any degree 

 of certainty, 



Aristotle, perceiving that the course taken by preceding philoso- 

 phers had not conducted them to the true knowledge of things, 

 partially renounced their false ideas, and rested more upon obser- 

 vation and experience. In his researches, he was favoured by Al- 

 exander, of whom he had been the preceptor. That conqueror, in 

 the midst of pride, and the fury of passion, still possessed the love 

 of true glory, and a desire that his conquests might serve to promote 

 the improvement of the human mind ; he allowed to Aristotle, in the 

 prosecution of his scientific inquiries, every facility that wealth and 

 power could bestow. 



Aristotle believed, that in nature there was a regular progress 

 from inorganized matter upwards to man, and from man upwards 

 to the Deity ; that beings were connected together by certain affini- 

 ties, composing an immense chain, of which the finks were all con- 

 nected. But, 



" Lives the man whose universal eye 

 Has swept at once the unbounded scheme of things? 



Has any seen 

 The mighty chain of beings, lessening down 

 From infinite perfection, to the brink 

 Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss?" 



This idea of a regular chain of beings, presenting itself with such 

 grandeur and simplicity, has had many admirers ;"but facts do not 

 seem to correspond with this theory. In the vegetable kingdom we 

 should find it mipossible to trace a regular gradation frorn the oak 

 to a moss (if we were to make these the extremes of the chain of 

 vegetable substances,) and say exactly in what part of the scale each 

 family of plants should be placed; it would rather seem, in many 

 cases, as if the finks of the chain had been broken or disunited. 



Aristotle considered plants as intermediate between inorganized 

 matter and animals. Plants, he said, are not distinguished from an- 

 imals in being destitute of the seat of life, the heart; because of this 

 the reptiles and inferior orders of animals are also destitute ; but 

 plants have no consciousness of themselves, or organs of sense to 

 know what is out of themselves ; animals possess these faculties ; 

 therefore, Aristotle says, they are different. We think it would have 

 been difScult for him to have discovered any evidence of conscious- 

 ness in the sponge, or any marks by which it might appear that this 

 animal substance (for such it is thought to be) has the knowledge of 

 any thing external to itself However great may be the veneration 

 entertained for the opinions of Aristotle, we believe his distinction 

 between plants and animals will at this time find no supporters. 

 This philosopher published his works on natural history about 384 

 years before Christ. 



Theophrastus, the friend and pupil of Aristotle, published a great 

 number of learned works ; among others " A History of Plants," and 

 " The Causes of Vegetation." He treated separately of aquatic 



Empedocles— Hippocrates— Aristotle— Various opinions of Aristotle— TheophrastuE- 

 19* 



