220 
HISTORY OF BOTANY. 
whose seed was in itself, after his kind; and God saw that it was 
good” After this, it is recorded that God gave to Adam every herb 
and every tree hearing fruit; the latter was for him exclusively, but 
to the beasts of the earth, and the fowls of the air, and to every thing 
wherein there is life, he also gave the green herb for meat. 
It is recorded that Adam gave names to all the beasts of the field, 
and the fowls of the air; and Milton imagines, that to Eve was as¬ 
signed the pleasant task of giving names to flowers, and numbering 
the tribes ol plants. When our first parents, as a punishment for 
their disobedience, are about to leave their delightful Eden, Eve, in 
the language of the poet, with bitter regret, exclaims: 
“ Must I thus leave thee, Paradise 1 * * 
* *■ * * * Oh flowers 
That never will in other climate grow, 
* * which I bred up with tender hand, 
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names ; 
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank 
Your tribes ?” 
The Bible, and the poems of Homer, afford us the only vestiges of 
the botanical knowledge of the earliest ages of the world. Great ad¬ 
vantages were afforded to the Jews for obtaining a knowledge of 
plants, in their long wanderings over the face of the earth, before 
they settled in Judea. When in possession of this fertile country, 
they extended their intercourse with foreign nations ; the vessels of 
Solomon frequented the shores of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and 
the East Indian islands. In the Book of Kings it is said, “ God gave 
Solomon wisdom and understanding above all the children of the 
East country, and all the wisdom of Egypt, for he was wiser than 
ail men. He spake proverbs and songs ; he also spake of trees, from 
the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop , thatspringeth 
out of the wall; and people from all countries came to hear his wis¬ 
dom.” 
The Magi, or u wise men of the East,” cultivated the sciences to a 
great extent; but they kept their discoveries in mysterious conceal¬ 
ment, in order the better to tyrannize over the minds of the people. 
Their researches were in a great measure lost to the world. Greece, 
however, received from Asia and Egypt the first elements of knowl¬ 
edge. 
The philosophers of Greece, too eager to learn nature at one 
glance, were not satisfied with the slow process of observation and 
experiment, and to ascend from particular facts to general princi¬ 
ples; but they believed themselves able, by the force of their own 
genius, to build up systems which would explain all phenomena; 
supposing that man had in his mind preconceived ideas of what 
nature ought to be. This error in the philosophy of the ancients 
for a long time obstructed the progress of all science; and it was 
not until laying aside this false notion, and admitting that the only 
sure method of learning nature is to study her works, that the la¬ 
bours of philosophers began to be followed by important discoveries. 
The greater part of the ancient Greek philosophers asserted, that 
plants were organized like animals, that they possessed sensible and 
rational souls capable of desires and fears, pleasure and pain. Py¬ 
thagoras of Samos, who travelled in Egypt, and was there instruct¬ 
ed by the priests of the goddess Isis, is said by Pliny to have been 
Milton imagines that Eve gave names to the plants, and numbered their tribes— 
What is known of the progress of botany during the earliest ages of the world—Solo¬ 
mon is said to have spoken of trees and other plants—The Magi—Philosophers of 
Greece—Pythagoras. 
