The history of BOTANY. 
23 
of Figures of Plants ; and Galen laughs at thofe who Ihould think to 
learn a knowledge of them from defcriptions. Such as wilhed to know 
their forms, were told there was no way but by their being fliewn to them : 
and thus Botany, even by the authority of thofe who had moft credit with 
the world, became reduced, from a regular and noble fcience, to a pi- 
tiful and precarious art ; v/hich men were to learn by rote from one an- 
other. This, tho’ they did not feem to fee fo much who propofed it, 
flruck at the root even of its utility: for it was in vain, the ancients in- 
formed men of the virtues of Plants, if their names were changed. This 
Galen fliould have forefeen muft happen, when the knowledge of them 
was taught in fo precarious a manner ; and it had already happened : for 
Galen did not know many of the Plants of Theophrastus; nor did 
thefe verbal indruftors, fuch as they were, well underdand one another. 
This at once fliews the mifery of a negledl of fcience ; and places in a 
light o*f jud regard, the modern fixed and eternally edablithed didinc- 
tions. 
Oribasius followed Galen ; his countryman, and long his difciple : 
we find in him an indance of the unhappy truth jud named ; and we find 
little more. Galen knew fcarce half the Plants of Plinv, and Oriba- 
sius did not know thofe of Galen. Error is always the Parent of more 
error. -All that is ufeful in this author, he had from Galen ; but he 
has debafed the dudy with puerile imaginations. 
Aetius followed, or was cotemporary rather with the latter years of 
Oribasius, another Afiatic Greek, as he and Galen were. He was 
a mere compiler, and a very indifferent one, fo far as Botany, our fubjedl, 
is concerned. Trallian came next; and he difclofed a fpirit more free 
and fit for fcience. He dudied things themfelves, not the defcriptions 
of them; and he often diffents from Galen, where truth demanded it, 
tho’ he allows that author the high epithet of Divine. It was happy for 
the age, that fuch a man arofe as a Phyfician ; and it had been well for 
Botany, if a genius fo much of the original damp, had diredled his thoughts 
more that way ; but it was then, and it continued long after, an unre- 
puted fcience. 
Another Afiatic, ^Tgineta, arofe a little after; a phyfician and a 
fcholar, who mud be named, becaufe he treated of Plants, but not dif- 
tinguifhed by the title of Botanid. He made an abridgment of the works 
of Galen and his fird followers. In this work he could not omit to 
name many Plants ; but he added nothing to the dore. 
Such 
