CHAPTER I 

 THE EARLY HISTORY OF BOTANY 



I. Introductory, 



N the present book, the special subject 

 (treated is the evolution of the pointed 

 .herbal, between the years 1470 and 

 1670, but it is impossible to arrive 

 at clear ideas on this subject without 

 some knowledge of the earlier stages 

 in the history of Botany. The first 

 chapter will therefore be devoted to 

 the briefest possible sketch of the progress of Botany before 

 the invention of printing, in order that the position occupied 

 by the Herbal in the history of the science may be realised 

 in its true perspective. 



From the very beginning of its existence, the study of 

 plants has been approached from two widely separated 

 standpoints — the philosophical and the utilitarian. Regarded 

 from the first point of view. Botany stands on its own 

 merits, as an integral branch of natural philosophy, whereas, 

 from the second, it is merely a by-product of medicine 

 or agriculture. This distinction, however, is a somewhat 

 arbitrary one ; the more philosophical of botanists have not 

 disdained at times to consider the uses of herbs, and those 

 who entered upon the subject, with a purely medical inten- 

 tion, have often become students of plant life for its own 

 sake. At different periods in the evolution of the science, 

 one or other aspect has predominated, but from classical 

 times onwards, it is possible to trace the development of 

 these two distinct lines of inquiry, which have sometimes 



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