12 
The history of BOTANY. 
but the fucceeding Plinv employs it in all its freedom. Theophrastus 
wrote when a little was known, and they who followed him for many 
ages, were very negligent on the fubjedl : it is poffible they may have 
founded grofs errors on their flight notice of his diflindlions j but juflice to 
his memory requires of us to add, they did not find them in his writings. 
PERIOD THE SECOND. 
The State of the SCIENCE during the Government of 
the ROMANS. ■ 
CHAP. III. 
The BOTANY of DIOSCORIDES. 
H ippocrates fpoke of Plants as a Phyficlan, and Theophras- 
tus confidered them as a Philofopher : Dioscorides united the two 
fubjedls ; and to ferve farther the great purpofe of utility, he added to 
what they had written, a great deal from his own experience : an author 
lefs original than either, but more generally ufeful ; born, perhaps, with 
an inferior genius, but indefatigable and honcfl. To the five hundred 
Plants of Theophrastus, he added more than ninety: fo that in his 
time the account flood at about fix hundred. 
All thefe were ufed in medicine, or in the oeconomy of ordinary af- 
fairs : for the ancients of this period confidered them only as worthy no- 
tice for that reafon. The fpirit of a philofophic enquiry into their nature, 
which feerns to have been born with Theophrastus, died alfo with him. 
Afliduous obfervation formed the charadier of Dioscorides; bi.t this was 
more diredbed to the qualities and virtues of Plants, than to their outward 
parts, or their internal conftrudion. For the’ he has endeavoured to de- 
feribe mofl: of thofe whofe ufes he relates, he has feldom done it perfedtly. 
Galen taught the world to look on Dioscorides with reverence, when 
he claimed only refpedb ; and tho’ he deferves much praife, to give him 
more. 
Dioscorides lived long after Theophrastus; and there are fome 
who place him later than Pliny ; but this, tho’ countenanced by many great 
names, 
