1885.] 
745 
Analyses of Books. 
The author and the editor of the work before us seem in great 
measure to repudiate these biological and geological methods. 
They think that “ of late years the scientist has had too much 
his own way, that it is time for the historic and philologic methods 
to come into play and have their say.” 
We do not feel justified in a total repudiation of these methods. 
In doubtful cases they may turn the balance. Where more tan- 
gible evidence is wanting they may be precious. But we fear 
that, generally speaking, they are more apt to lead to ingenious 
speculation than to definite truth. The writer holds that if a 
plant is never mentioned by Homer, whilst later writers speak 
of it in a vague way, we may infer that the plant had been im- 
ported into Greece within historical times. To us this seems an 
unsafe inference. There is no necessity that every plant known, 
or even common in Greece, should be mentioned by Homer. If 
it is noticed more and more clearly by succeeding writers, this is 
likely to be due to the faCt that, as agriculture, horticulture, and 
especially medicine, were more carefully studied, the flora of 
Greece, as of other countries, would certainly become more ac- 
curately known. Had early Greece possessed a work on Materia 
Medica, revised editions of which appeared every century, we 
should then have firm ground beneath our feet. But to estimate 
the fauna or flora of a country from mere literary productions, 
where the mention of plants and animals is merely casual, is 
certainly a rash procedure. What a grotesque notion should we 
form of the flora of England if we were to compile it from the 
writings of our poets, playwrights, and novelists ! 
As regards the natural history of the Mediterranean lands, we 
have often regretted that the botanical and zoological treatises of 
Solomon, mentioned in I. Kings, iv., 33, are not extant. In all 
probability they would have thrown an invaluable light on the 
origin and migrations of our domestic animals and cultivated 
plants. 
Another difficulty besetting the literary and traditional method 
upon which our authors rely is the lack in olden times of a fixed 
nomenclature for natural objects. Hence the identification of 
animals and plants mentioned in the Greek and even the Latin 
classics, and in the Old Testament has been attended with no 
little unprofitable inkshed. 
Another point must not be forgotten : when a people migrate 
into new abodes they frequently give to the plants and the ani- 
mals of that region — perhaps nameless before — the names of the 
plants and animals with which they were familiar in their original 
seats. Of this we have abundant instances on the part of 
European settlers in America. In view of this trait of human 
nature the value of the philological evidence is greatly lessened. 
To the naturalist the work before us must be pronounced of 
but small value, in virtue alike of its narrow scope and of its 
questionable methods. For the historian of culture, the ethnolo* 
VOL. VII. (third SERIES. 3 c 
