6 
INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY. 
whose abilities were superior to their own, caused that city 
to become the focus of literature and science; and the 
waitings produced in that short space of time still remain 
the noblest monuments of the powers of the human mind, 
for they have commanded the admiration of succeeding 
ages, and left nothing for future writers to do but to imi- 
tate, as far as is possible, their excellencies. In the schools 
which were then established, that of the peripatetics, whose 
founder was Aristotle, was the one that, cultivating natural 
history, of course merits most notice in a history of botany. 
Aristotle, the son of a perfumer, who were in those days 
the dispensers of compound medicines prescribed by lay 
practitioners, had, from his well-merited reputation, been 
raised to be the tutor of Alexander the Great ; and, on his 
pupil becoming possessed of the treasures collected by the 
Persian monarch, he formed the project, among other vast 
schemes of literary renown, of writing a complete history 
of natural substances from actual observation, or the rela- 
tion of the numerous collectors which his influence over 
his former pupil enabled him to employ; and took the 
zoological and meteorological parts under his own imme- 
diate care ; and his History of Animals, although little re- 
garded in the schools engaged in teaching the elements of 
knowledge, is a splendid monument of his abilities. 
The mineralogical and botanical part of this general 
history of nature was entrusted to his pupil Theophrastus, 
who also succeeded to the professorial chair in the public 
school. A work of Theophrastus on minerals, and two on 
plants, have, after a very narrow escape from oblivion, 
descended to our times. He treats his subject generally 
in a philosophical manner. In his book on the causes of 
plants, he considered the propagation, culture, qualities, 
and uses of plants in general ; but very few are described 
by him in a particular manner,, as he supposes the reader 
to be either acquainted with them, or to be informed by 
a master. In his larger work, entitled, the History of 
Plants, he mentions about five hundred plants, and begins 
with the organization, generation, and propagation of 
vegetables. In the third and fourth books he goes on to 
treat largely upon trees ; then follows his observations 
upon timber and choice of it. The sixth book is on shrubs, 
thorny plants, roses, and other ornamental plants usually 
cultivated in gardens. In the seventh he treats upon 
kitchen-garden plants, and those that grow wild. In the 
eighth upon grain of different kinds, upon which he is very 
