The history of BOTANY. 
19 
deal of his matter, and their charaders, it is probable he did j therefore 
thb’ his great work is an epitome, as it were, of the Grecian and early 
Roman knowledge, it mufi; he ufed with extreme caution, cr it will lead 
the reader into flrange errors. It is evident, he underflood no Botany ; 
nor had any knowledge of the Plants concerning which we find fo many 
chapters in his work ; he owed principally to the Greek writers what he 
has faid of them, and unhappily he was but a very indifferent mafter of 
their language. This appears plainly, becaufe we have the originals in 
many inftances, and can judge of his tranflations. Thefe are the imper- 
fedions of Pliny ; but guarding againft the errors to which thefe might 
feem to lead, we find a great deal of knowledge in his work, not to be 
meet with in the others. 
From Theophrastus to Dioscorides, tho’ a period of between three 
and four centuries, Botany had been fo little regarded, that not altoge- 
ther a hundred Plants were added to the original Catalogue : but the ac- 
count wears a new face, from Dioscorides to the time of Pliny ; and 
it is to that laborious Greek we probably are to attribute the advantage. 
His writings feem to have raifed a fpirit of enquiry in the curious world, 
upon a fubjed which had flept fo long : And the period between him and 
Pliny, which cannot reafonably be accounted more than thirty years, 
added at lead four hundred Plants. Pliny names, and in fome degree 
dcfcribes, more than a thoufand fpecies. The fubjed is darted in his 
twelfth book, and is continued to the twenty-feventh. It makes within a 
few pages half his vaft work. 
Pliny fets out with a bold and lingular principle, that Vegetables have 
a f)ul. What the more referved Theophrastus called the Principle 
OF Life in Plants, the Roman dignifies with that fuperior name ; diftin- 
guilliing it, however, from the foul of animals, as of a fubordinate kind. 
We mud not wonder at this thought in Pliny, for Soul with him meant 
lefs than we are taught to underdand of it : he confiders Soul as the Seat 
of Life ; and tho’ he had been taught by that Hipparchus, whom all 
ages celebrate, to account the Soul of Man a part of the Heavenly Ef- 
fence, yet he defpifes thofe who held, as he exprefies it, the vain and idle 
thought, that it exided after death. We know hence what he means, by 
that he calls the Soul of Plants, a fubtle fomething upon which their 
growth depends j and which perifhing with them, there ccafes utterly. This 
is all the addition Pliny made, if it may be called an addition, to the 
Philofophy of Plant?. 
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