IJo. 129.] 401 



The Hungarians are proud of their descent fiom the heroes 

 who formed the bulwark of Christendom against the Mohamme- 

 'dan infidels. 



The Botanical Doctrine and Vegetable Physiology taught by 

 Theophrastus, in Athens, in the fourth century betbfethe christian 

 ■era — two thousand two hundred years a^o. 



Aristotle, devoted much care to th« study ofanimals, their his- 

 tory and anatomy. Theophrastus, his scholar and his successor in 

 the Lyceum, devoted himself to the science of vegetation. Before 

 his time, vegetable physiology was unknown, and wondering ima- 

 :ginations tad made what is mysterious still more profoundly so. 

 Theophrastus relied wholly on close observation and expei'ience. 

 He travelled through Asia Minor, Macedonia, and in Old EgypU 

 His penetrating genius and extensive observations enabled him to 

 ■discover truths before unknown. He produced a most remarka- 

 ble revolution in natural history. He made botany a science, 

 iie created the art of studying structure and organization of 

 vegetables, and the phenomena of their existense, from the 

 moment when the plant begins to grow t-o the end of its 

 «course. In Dioscorides we see more of an empyric than of a 

 naturalist. Pliny did not always understand Theophrastus, 

 and still less did tlie crowd of commentators wlio have pretend- 

 ed to explain his doctrines. I will draw from those great works 

 of his which have escaped the shipwreckof time, and I will show 

 that oui' most celebrated modern botanists have drawn from that 

 source the most ingenious systems which now divide the opinions 

 of the savans of the world. His first work was a history of 

 plants. It is written with a masterly hand. We admire, by 

 lurns, the purity of style and the variety of knowledge, his taste 

 for the most ditfieult researches, and his sagacity in observation 

 and in the -discovery of truth. That work, of which we have 

 the first nine books and a small fragment of the tenth, appeared 

 about the year three hundred and fourteen before Christ, for it is 

 dedicated to Nicodorus of Athens, who was raised to the dignity 

 of Archon of Athens, in the third year of the one hundred and 

 sixteenth Olympiad- 

 He made himself master of the knowledge of five hundred 

 species of plants. He formed two grand classes. First, plants 

 [Assembly, No. 129] 26 



