REVIEW. 
129 
PART II. 
REVIEWS AND EXTRACTS. 
REVIEW. 
INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY. 
. V . - ->• . » 
BY J. LINDLEY, ESQ. F. R. S. 
Illustrated with numerous Engravings on Wood, and Six Copper Plates, 8 vo. 18s. 
Two hundred and ninety nine years ago, when Leonhart Fuchs, a learned physi¬ 
cian, of Tubingen, published a work of four folio pages, Botany was nothing 
more than the art of distinguishing one plant from another, and remembering 
the medical qualities which experience, error, or superstition ascribed to them. 
It now comprehends not only the knowledge of the names, and uses of plants, 
but of their external and internal organization, and of their anatomy and phy¬ 
siological phenomena; it embraces a consideration of the plan upon which those 
multitudes of vegetable forms that clothe the earth, have been created, of the 
skilful combinations, out of which so many various organs have emanated, of 
the laws that regulate the dispersion and location of species, of the influence 
that climate exercises upon their developement, and the various ways in which 
the laws of vegetable life, are applicable to the augmentation of luxuries and 
comforts, or the diminution of the wants and miseries of mankind. 
The principles of such a science must necessarily be extremely complicated, 
and in certain branches, which have only for a short time occupied the attention 
of observers, or which depend upon obscure or ill understood'evidence, are by 
no means so clear, and defined, as could be wished. To draw a distinct line be 
tween what is certain and what is doubtful, is one of the objects of this work. 
Another is to demonstrate by well connected proofs, that the greatest harmony is 
manifest in the vegetable kingdom, and show that the most important phenomena 
may be distinctly explained by a few simple laws of life and structure. In the 
execution of these objects Mr. Lindley has followed the method recommended, 
by the celebrated professor De Candolle. How well able the author is to exjdain 
the science of Botany, it is needless to say, the work before us speaks for itself: 
such a mass of facts, laws, arguments, rules, inferences, &c. relating to the study 
of this science, in so simple and perspicuous a manner, have never before ap¬ 
peared in the shape of a single volume, but were only attainable at an amazing- 
expense ; and even then the substance was hid in a number of large books, which 
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