HISTORY OF BOTANY. 
277 
numbering the tribes of plants. When our first parents, after 
their wicked disobedience of the Divine command, are about to 
leave their delightful Eden, Eve, in the language of the Poet, with 
bitter regret exclaims : 
“Must I thus leave thee, Paradise ? thus leave 
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades, 
Fit haunt of Gods, where I had hope to spend, 
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day, 
That must be mortal to us both 1 Oh flowers 
That never will in other climate grow, 
My early visitation, and my last 
At even ; which I bred up with tender hand, 
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names; 
Who now shall rear yc to the sun, or rank 
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount ?” 
The Bible, and the poems of Ilomer, afford us the only vesti- 
ges of the botanical knowledge of the earliest ages of the world. 
Great advantages were afforded to the Jews for obtaining a 
knowledge of plants, in their long wanderings over the face of the 
earth, before they settled in Judea. When in possession ofl his fertile 
country, they extended their intercourse with foreign nations; the 
vessels of Solomon frequented the shores of the Red Sea, the 
Persian Gulf, and the East Indian Islands. In the Book of Kings 
it is said, “ God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding above 
all the children of the East country, and all the wisdom of Egypt, 
for he was wiser than all men. lie spake proverbs and songs ; 
he also spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon 
even unto the hyssop , that springeth out of the wall ; and people 
from all countries came to hear his wisdom.” 
The Magi, or “wise men of the east” cultivated the sciences to 
a great extent ; but they kept their discoveries in mysterious 
concealment, in order the better to tyrannize over the minds of 
the people. Their researches were in a great measure lost to 
the world. Greece, however, received from Asia and Egypt the 
first elements of knowledge. 
The philosc^ihers of Greece, too eager to learn nature at one 
glance, were not satisfied with the slow process of observation 
and experiment, and to ascend from particular facts to general 
principles ; but they believed themselves able, by the force of 
their own genius, to build up systems that would explain all 
phenomena ; supposing that man had in his mind, preconceived 
ideas of what nature ought to be. This error in the philosophy 
of the ancients, for a long time obstructed the progress of all 
science ; and it was not until laying aside this false notion, and 
The Bible and the poems of Homer afford the only botanical facts known 
in the earlies ages af the world — Solomon is said to have spoken of trees 
and other plants — The Magi — Philosophers of Greece — 
24 
