4 
The history of BOTANY. 
knowing what almoft all of them were. That he fays little of their vir- 
tues, can be no reproach j for he did not write on medicine. We own, 
and we lament, that his deferiptions are often fhort ; but neither was this 
any part of his defign. He treated of the Laws of Vegetation in Plants 
commonly known j and he names them as fuch. \Vc cannot forefee 
what may be the fate of letters : perhaps two thoufand centuries hence, 
when after a vaft fpace of renewed Barbaiiffn, arts and power may have 
feated ihemfelves in the remote America, fome hady writer may, in the 
fame manner, arraign the Britifh Theophrastus, Hales, for not giving 
the virtues of the Sun Flower j or deferibing more at large, the Hop- 
Plant and the Apple-Tree. 
There remains yet one objeflion more to this great Founder of Bo- 
tanic Knowledge; very general, but as unjuft as thefe: it is the obfeurity 
of his writings. Vv’’e mud not wonder this is often named ; for it is a 
fadiion to read Greek authors in the trandations : and it has been the ill 
fate of this writer, to be mod unhappily rendered into other languages. 
Even the elegant Gaza, tho’ he has done judice often to the .language of 
Theophrastus, has failed extremely in the articles of fcience : for only 
one who had fludied the fubjedt could, in this part, underdand the au- 
thor. Perhaps this difficulty might have been, in fome degree, removed, 
if that BoDiEUS, who happily, tho’ tedioiifly, illiidrated fome. of the 
writings of this author, had not left the greated work of all untouched. 
Thofe who will read Theophrastus in the original, will find thefe cavils 
vanifh ; and will in every part admire how vad a genius, and what obfer- 
vation he has difclofed ; what attention to nature, and what difeernment 
in her operations. 
He propofes his great undertakntg as a philofophical, rather than an 
hidorical performance; and fird treating Plants as Plants, not as of this 
or that peculiar kind, lie feeks their nature and tlieir laws only from 
themfelves : deducing the new fcience from thefe four fources : i. Their 
condrudlion, and their natural and eOential parts. 2. Their peculiarities. 
3. Their origin and propagation. 4. Their life. This is indeed properly 
the whole fubjedt : farther obfervations may fliew more wonders in thefe 
feveral articles ; and new difeovered countries afford additional fpecies, 
wherein to trace them ; but the fource and true foundation of the fcience 
lies in thefe four enquiries. 
After the co.mmon and received dldindtions of the feveral natural 
parts of Plants, the Root, the Stem, the Branches, and the like, he 
enters upon the condrudlion of thefe, and their condituent matter. The 
effential 
