14 
The history of BOTANY. 
has written, is regardlefs of fcience, and cftablifhed upon the foie bafis of 
utility. Even his arrangement of the fubjeds, is made on this foundation. 
He confiders Herbs as Medicines ; no otherwifc : and has mixed the ac- 
counts of various kinds together, as he found direction in their common 
virtues. Thus defective is Dioscorides as a Botanifl; j but as a Phyfician 
he is highly valuable. 
He confiders the ufe of Medicines as diretflcd to two purpofes ; the pre- 
fervation of health j and its recovery, when affuilted and impaired by dif- 
tafes. He fuppefes aromatlcks to be the greateft prefervatives, and firft treats 
of them; arranging them all together. This is his original purpofe; but 
he has not negledted the confideration of their forms entirely. Ufually 
Plants of the fame natural clafs, have the fame virtue : therefore they are 
in general united by a double band: but when two Plants are alike in 
qualities, and unlike in form, Dioscorides, giving the refemblance of 
virtue the firPe place, keeps them together. His writings, therefore, were 
more adapted to indruct the Phyfician than to form or to improve the Bo- 
tanifl : and fuch he intended them. This has its fair cxcufc, when v. e' 
confider the nature and genius of his work : but there is one compliance 
with vulgar cullom which he has made, and which is lefs pardonable. If 
the common phrafe of the people called two didindl: Plants, which had 
no refemblance, either in form or virtue, by the fime name, he has alfo 
kept them together ; forgetful that an author of his rank flioiild have im- 
proved tl.e public tade, and not have foothed it in thefc mifchievoiis errors. 
He feems to have paid fome regard to the cdablidied didindllon of Vege- 
tables into Trees, Shrubs, and Herbs ; a natural, tho’ incerredt, didindlion, 
which obtained in and before tlie lime of TiiEoniRASTUS ; but this, like 
all other didindtions of form, he has made fubfervient to the agreement 
of Plants in their qualities : neither has he concerned himfelf about any 
arrangement or didindlion according to their parts or forms. 
Dioscorides has had the fortune to he named among the Fathers of 
the Science of Botany ; but it is certain he did abfolulely nothing toward 
its advancement. The knowledge of Medicine in his time, owed to him 
great things ; but the fcience of Botany not the lead improvement. It ap- 
pears to have had one, and but one, great parent, Theopiiras rus. The 
writings of that author were open to Dioscorides ; but his plan did not re- 
quire that he Ihould ufe them: nor did his genius lead toward thofe refearches, 
into which the other had opened a plain tho’ utterly negledled path. As 
to the knowledge of particular Plants, it is thought the world owes much 
to Dioscorides, becaufe he has given longer deferiptions than the elder 
Greek ; 
