184 
Hindoo observations on similar subjects, and their attention 
to such subjects may, perhaps, account for the knowledge by 
the Greeks of Indian plants. In like manner, some of the 
views of Aristotle on the generation of animals, more espe- 
cially that denominated equivocal, do not seem to differ 
from such as are found among the Hindoos. The early poet 
and physician Nicander wrote on poisons and their anti- 
dotes ; so we have seen that this was one of the subjects 
early treated of by the Hindoos ; and even that the Hindoo 
Manka translated a treatise on poisons from Sanscrit into 
Persian at the Court of Harun-al-Rashid. (v. p. 64.) 
For these reasons, the several subjects on which Demo- 
critus wrote, have been mentioned at p. 115. That he 
travelled in southern regions, we have the proof in his 
having described the sensitive plant — his coincidence in 
opinion with the Hindoo Kanade respecting atoms, has 
already been stated — and it is curious that he should 
be cited as one of the earliest writers on chemistry 
(v. Enc. Metrop. Chemistry, p. 590), when it was not sus- 
pected that chemistry had ever been cultivated in the East, 
in the days when he travelled. Thus, likewise Eudoxus, 
who lived 370 years before the Christian era, and is said to 
have studied thirteen years in Egypt, is stated by Seneca 
to have introduced from thence into Greece, the theory of 
the five planets. " Eudoxus quinque syderum cursus in 
Graeciam ab iEgypto transtulit. 11 (Quasst. Nat. vii. 3.) He 
composed also a description of the sphere, which is supposed 
to have been copied from one long anterior to his own time, 
in consequence of his asserting that there is a certain star in 
the celestial sphere, corresponding to the pole of the equator. 
" Now this could not have been the polar star of our times, 
which was then, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, 
far from the pole ; and upon examining this part of the 
heavens, there seems to be no other star that could be 
