Everybody likes to gather flowers for the sake of their beauty and scent, and most young people ask the names and the uses of the plants which grow them. These appear to have been the questions that the earliest races of men sought to answer for themselves. They gave plants names, and ascribed some truthful and a great many very curious and false properties to them. Many of the first races of men lived on fruits, vegetables, and roots, and it became important to know good and nourishing plants from those which were poisonous. The ablest men of the tribes, probably, studied the names which had been given by custom to many plants; and the healing power of some plants, and the poisonous nature of others began to be known; the good and ill-disposed amongst men endeavoured to learn all about them. Thus the first steps in the science of plants were to name them, and to ascribe properties to them. It has often been noticed that there is some resemblance between the history of the progress of a science, during all the ages of civilization, and that of the rise and progress of one in the child, youth, and man. The child receives everything that it is told, as a truth, and loves the wonderful; the youth likes to hear of mysteries, and his emotions and poetic feeling lead him to desire general truths; and the man criticizes what he has been told, tries to learn for himself, and longs for exact knowledge and the absolute truth. So in the early days of civilization, men believed in everything that was told them, and ascribed wonderful properties to the nature around them which they saw was so beautiful and yet often so terrible. As the world got older, curious legends were associated with truths and falsities; and with the general diffusion of learning, and the careful exercise of the reasoning powers, knowledge became more exact and useful, and was followed for truth’s sake.

All branches of knowledge relating to nature passed through many stages, and were influenced by the prevailing habits and methods of thought of the age. The wonderful, the mysterious, the marvellous, the union of poetry with true and false religion, the struggle between the desire for truth and fear of the persecution of the ignorant, and the victory of cultivated observation and reason, all followed, in order, during the history of the progress of every science. A great writer states that it cannot then surprise us that the earliest lore concerning plants, which we discover in the records of the past, consists of mythological legends, marvellous relations, and extraordinary medicinal qualities. To the lively fancy of the Greeks, the narcissus, which bends its head over the stream, was originally a youth who, in such an attitude, became enamoured of his own beauty. The hyacinth, on whose flower certain markings are to be traced resembling the Greek expression of grief (ΑΙΑΙ), recorded the sorrow of the god Apollo for the death of his favourite Hyacinthus. The beautiful lotus of India, which floats with its splendid flower on the surface of the water, is the chosen seat of the goddess Lackshmi, the daughter of Ocean. In Egypt, the god Osiris swam on a lotus leaf, and the lotus-eaters of Homer lost their love of home immediately.

These legends and odd fancies, although believed in by the populace of the Eastern nations until a late period in history, were of great antiquity and under different names of gods and plants, heroes and flowers had been handed down from the dawn of civilization. Yet this was not all the knowledge about plants in those early years. The more thoughtful amongst men began to recognize plants by name and to study their uses. Some men were hunters and shepherds, but with them were those who, with gentler spirit, tilled the ground and stored the fruits of the earth. What these were, can be learned from the pictures in Egyptian paintings. The corn of Egypt was wheat and barley, and it is interesting to know that the wheat was of a kind that must have been produced by skilled cultivation.

The vine comes early into notice in the Bible, and it had been studied, for wine was made of its fruit. Solomon loved nature, because it brought him into the presence of truth and beauty, and he “spoke of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall.” This was part of his wisdom. And the great traveller, Herodotus, shows us that a taste for natural history had, in his time, found a place in the mind of the Greeks—a great race who followed after the first child-like nature-studies of the Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Babylonians had merged into real knowledge. In speaking of the luxuriant vegetation of the plains of Babylon—now dreary wastes—he is so far from desiring to astonish merely, that he says “the blades of wheat and barley are full four fingers wide; but as to the size of the trees which grow from millet and sesame, though I could mention it I will not, knowing well that those who have not been in that country will hardly believe what I have said already.” It is clear that when the Greeks were in the child-like stage of plant lore, the older races had passed it, and were successful cultivators of plants that had required much study to turn to use. But the Greeks soon made amends, and the teacher of Alexander the Great, Aristoteles, tried to arrange plants, and to classify them according to their peculiarities. Plants and herbs had been long used as medicine, and the poisonous properties of aconite had been employed to destroy one of the noblest men of old, before this time, so that this celebrated naturalist had the knowledge, which had been accumulating for centuries, to put in order and to arrange.

Aristoteles was born at Stageira, in the year 384 B.C., and it is interesting to note that his wonderful love of nature was fostered by, and, indeed, probably arose from the profession of his father. His father was the physician and friend of Amyntas, King of Macedonia, and his mother was a descendant of the great physician Æsculapius. The young Aristoteles lost both his parents at an early period of his life, but the son of Amyntas, called Philip, was his friend, and kind people brought the boy up. We know nothing of the boy’s habits or method of life; but it can be readily understood by those who read these lives, and have had a love of nature, before the experience of such a calamity as the loss of parents, that many an hour of sorrow was shortened and solaced by studying the graceful and blooming plants and the movements and habits of animals. Certain it is that the boy loved study, and it soon became evident that his loss was compensated, as it is very often in such cases, by a spirit of self-reliance. In his eighteenth year he went to Athens to study the healing art. When Aristoteles was about twenty-one years of age, the philosopher Plato returned from Sicily, and the young man then seems to have cared more for the study of the sciences which were requisite for a polished physician, than for the art of healing. He made his first self-sacrifice, as many a man has done since; he gave up the uncertainties of the art of curing diseases, and learned natural history and philosophy. His eagerness for knowledge and his extraordinary acuteness and sagacity doubtless attracted Plato’s notice, who soon called him “the intellect of the school,” and said his house was “the house of the reader.” As Aristoteles grew up, his early training and his love of the truth seen in nature, began to separate him from the common run of men, and his self-reliance began to make him an antagonist to the teachings even of the great Plato. But this opposition was not that of a vain and conceited young man. Plato had noticed his ability, and he was really a man of mark, whose opinions were valuable. Aristoteles studied facts, and knew many truths about natural history, but his wonderful master cared more for ideas. Such men must always clash, and Aristoteles writes in one of his books about his opposition to the philosophy of Plato, that it is painful to refute the doctrine of ideas, as it has been introduced by persons who were his friends; “nevertheless it is a duty to disregard such private feelings, for both philosophers and truth are dear to me, but it is right to give the preference to truth.” Truth! what is truth? said Pilate, and turned from the true. The Creator’s light, seen with our longing eyes, precious beyond conception, the sweetest solace of intellect; what is, what was—yet not to be defined by finite man. The very root of science, it is that which we are to hold in our consciences against all opposition. Appreciated by the savage, dear to pagan, the pride of the Christian, the giver of confidence amongst all men. Hard to get at, yet it is at the foundation of all those branches of knowledge which relate to the study of the Creation. Aristoteles studied natural history, that is, the plants and animals which came before him, especially. He recorded their description, noted their reproduction, and tried to make out their resemblances. He noticed the growth of things, and the decay of the surface of the earth, and having the facts and truths before him, he argued upon them. His master, Plato, was not a naturalist, but accepting the truths handed down to him by those who were observers of nature, he generalized about them, and got ideas by thinking out the bearings of the truths. He loved the ideal, and wrote, “Behold this world! You will find that its efficient cause is God, by whom it was brought into being; its moving cause, the goodness of the Creator.” He could no more occupy time by studying the structure of the flowers, plants, and sea-shells, than Aristoteles could in imagining or speculating on the causes of things. Both desired the truth, and tried to get it in different manners; but as at the present day there are moral philosophers and naturalists with totally different kinds of mind and habits of thought, so in those old days the master and pupil never worked together. The master gave way to his grand imagination, and the pupil was strictly a matter-of-fact man.

Aristoteles remained at Athens until he was thirty-seven years of age, when the death of Plato, in 347 B.C., happened. Before that time, however, he had become a man of note, and the Athenians sent him on an embassy to his friend and former patron, Philip of Macedon. It appears that he was able to serve his adopted country; but he made a mistake which all naturalists should avoid—he became a politician. His position at Athens became uncomfortable, and he left the city after the death of Plato, and, accompanied by a fellow-disciple of the great teacher, went into Asia Minor. They were invited by the Prince of Atarneus, named Hermeias, who had received lessons from Aristoteles. This man was once the slave of a banker, and when at Athens received a liberal education. Returning to his native country, he fought for Eubulus, the King of Atarneus, successfully against the Persians. On the death of Eubulus he was raised to the throne, and gladly welcomed one of the men who had given him knowledge, and, therefore, power. The romance of Aristoteles’ life followed quickly, for, unfortunately, Hermeias was captured by the Persians under a Greek general, after Aristoteles had been three years with him. He was put to death, and Aristoteles fled to Mitylene, the chief city of the neighbouring island of Lesbos. Hermeias had a sister, Pythias, and Aristoteles, knowing her excellent character and disposition, and being aware of the sad fate which she would suffer, were she to fall into the hands of the Persians, married her, and she accompanied him in his flight. She made him an excellent wife, and Aristoteles had always a fervent and sincere affection for the patriotic and philosophical prince his friend.

After two years’ residence in Mitylene, Aristoteles was invited by Philip to return to Macedonia, to superintend the education of his son Alexander, the future Alexander the Great, then fourteen years old. He was with this very able prince during about four years, and instructed him in morality, politics, and natural history. It was a strange position for a student of nature to occupy, and that he did his duty to his pupil is evident. It is the universal opinion that much that was admirable in the character of Alexander the Great was due to the influence of Aristoteles. The great conqueror was fond of literature, delighted in physical and even medical pursuits, sought the intimacy of men who thought, rather than that of men who had no other recommendation than titles and riches, and was devoted to the study of nature. These were the fruits of Aristoteles’ instruction, and it must be remembered that Alexander differed entirely in his conduct from the brutal conquerors who have been, over and over again, the scourge and curse of mankind.

Aristoteles lost his wife during this time, and she left him an only daughter. Then Philip was assassinated, and his son reigned at Macedon for two years, and then began his great expedition into Asia. Aristoteles accompanied his pupil to Athens, and parted with him never to see him again, but still to influence him for years. Unfortunately, however, Aristoteles recommended a relation, named Callisthenes, to the young king, and it was the cause of a rupture of friendship in years to come. Left to himself, our hero resolved to open a school for the benefit of the Athenian youth, and to teach good learning in philosophy and nature. He chose a house near a temple of Apollo Lyceius, which was called the “Lyceum,” and attached to it was a garden with walks, where the instruction was given. The Greek word for the walks was peripatua, and the school was called that of the peripatetics. His habit was to give one lecture in the early part of the day, on the more difficult parts of his teaching, to his more advanced students; and this was called the morning walk, and lasted till the hour when people dressed and anointed themselves. Another lecture, called the evening walk, was on more popular subjects, and to a larger and less select class. It was during these thirteen years of teaching that Aristoteles composed and completed the greater part of his works which have descended to our days. Amongst them are treatises on natural history, the result of his own observations and of the carefully selected works of others.

His great pupil never forgot his master during his victorious career, and Alexander is said to have sent Aristoteles the enormous sum of eight hundred talents to prosecute his studies in natural history. He, moreover, ordered several thousands of persons over the whole of Greece and Asia, who lived by hunting, bird-catching, and fishing, or who had the care of parks, herds, hives, stews, and aviaries, to furnish Aristoteles with materials for a work on animals. Two volumes on plants were written by Aristoteles, but they are lost to us; and he influenced the botanists of his day by his great exactitude of description and observation.

Aristoteles’ writings and teaching embraced a great variety of subjects, and they were so genuine that he became the leader of one of the principal schools of Greece; and his method of study and many of his facts and ideas have influenced mankind down to the present day. His works were much studied during the Middle Ages, and although his books on botany have been lost, still he influenced the study of botany through his pupil, Theophrastus, who became the great light of after years.

There is one point about Aristoteles’ character which everybody must admire, and it was the gratitude he felt for the good friends of his youth and of the days of struggling upwards in his career. It has been noticed that he was brought up by kind people. They were not relations, but probably were appointed his guardians by his father. They were Proxenus and his wife, citizens of Atarneus, who had left that city and had been long resident in Stageira. Not only were they the good friends of the boy, but they evidently brought him in contact with Hermeias, who subsequently became the prince of the place and Aristoteles’ fast friend and brother-in-law. Aristoteles testified his gratitude to his friends by directing in his will that statues of them, as well as of his parents, should be set up at his expense. He likewise educated their son, Nicanor, to whom he gave his daughter in marriage. Whilst growing old he wrote a beautiful poem, which is still to be read, praising the virtues of his friend and patron, Hermeias.

But success in life is sure to produce envy and hostility, and Aristoteles was no exception to this rule. A charge was made against him of impiety, and that he had made a god of his friend Hermeias. Such charges were not uncommon in those days. Socrates, one of the greatest and purest of men, had been accused of impiety a few years before, and that teacher of the immortality of the soul, and the master and friend of Plato, had been condemned and poisoned. The charges were absurd enough, but the judges were ignorant, and sunk in paganism, and almost invariably took the side of the accuser. Indeed, all through the history of the progress of the rise of civilization there were men who teaching a false religion, accused the bright lights of genius, science, and wit, of irreligion. The false priest and the fighting class, with rare exceptions, have always persecuted the leaders in science, and have antagonized progress, except in their own interests.

When the charge was made against Aristoteles, Alexander the Great was dead, and the great teacher, knowing full well what would be the result of the trial, quitted Athens and took refuge in Chalcis, in Eubœa, saying that he wished to prevent the Athenians twice running against philosophy, alluding to the judicial murder of Socrates.

But Aristoteles’ work was nearly ended, and the slightly made, delicate, and sensitive man sank during the first year of his exile, in the sixty-third year of his age.

A great writer on moral philosophy, the man whose career has just been noticed will always remain a master in natural history subjects also. He was really a greater student of animal life than of plants; but it appears that his method of study of botany, and much of his knowledge, have descended to us, in consequence of his careful teaching, through his pupil Theophrastus. A great writer remarks that “everywhere Aristoteles observes the facts with attention; he compares them with sagacity, and endeavours to rise to the qualities they have in common.” He found the study of plants in its very infancy and loaded with child-like and wonderful stories, and he rejected the nonsense and studied what was to be observed by any one in nature. In fact, he took the first step which a well-educated boy of the present century does in trying to learn nature unaided. He observed as correctly as possible, took notes of his observations, compared the observations made on one plant with those recorded about another, and tried to explain or discover the things which were common to both. It must not be imagined that the botanical work of Aristoteles exists as part of the systems of botany of the present day; but he clearly gave the method of how to study, by insisting on the superior value of observed facts, over notions and preconceived ideas about things. The childhood of the science passed with him.

The name of Theophrastus has been noticed as that of the pupil of Aristoteles, and it is one which will always be mentioned with respect by students of natural history. He was born at Eresus, on the island of Lesbos; but the date of his birth is uncertain; moreover, nothing is known of his early youth, except that his name was Tyrtamus. His early education must have been good, and he was sent to study at Athens by his father, and to be a pupil of Plato. Becoming a friend of Aristoteles, this great man, charmed with the abilities, and especially with the beautiful pronunciation and oratory of the youth, gave him the name of Theophrastus, or one who speaks divinely. Theophrastus studied with Plato, and on the death of his master, left the academy and mixed with the turbulent politics of the day, but in a truly patriotic spirit. He was absent from Athens for many years, and the historian Plutarch writes that Theophrastus delivered his country twice from the oppression of tyrants. One of the defeated at the battle of Chæronæa, Theophrastus returned to Athens, gave up the military life, and became the favourite pupil of Aristoteles in the Lyceum.

Theophrastus became an earnest student of Aristoteles’ teaching, and his singular grace of expression and knowledge of his mother tongue soon made him a prominent philosopher.

When Aristoteles retired, his pupil became his successor; and as he combined the knowledge of that teacher with the eloquence of Plato, his success was extraordinary. The number of his pupils, on one occasion, is said to have amounted to two thousand who flocked around him from all parts of Greece. He soon began to feel the effects of his well-deserved and useful success upon the envious minds of the men who had caused the retirement of Aristoteles. And this envy and malice were rendered all the more intense because, having been a gallant soldier, and being a great teacher of advanced knowledge, Theophrastus became an authority on all intellectual subjects. A man was put forward by a party in the State, to bring the same charge of impiety against Theophrastus which had succeeded in the instances of Socrates and Aristoteles. But Theophrastus pleaded his own cause before the Areopagus with such convincing eloquence that he was pronounced innocent. On the other hand, his accuser would have fallen a victim to the false charge he had brought, had not his noble-minded antagonist pleaded for his pardon.

After this event the teacher pursued his course of public teaching and private research without any molestation for years. His school increased in reputation, and the most distinguished scholars of the day were members of it. Demetrius Phalereus, ruler of the State, was one of the students in his youth, and he protected Theophrastus and patronized him in every way. Botany was not the strongest subject of this great man, and probably what he knew about it was largely derived from the teaching of Aristoteles; but evidently his work on plants was one of the earliest that was written with anything like scientific precision. Nevertheless, Theophrastus added much original matter, for he had a botanic garden, and he collected plants during his travels in Greece. His military friends kept him supplied with specimens of Asiatic, Egyptian, and Arabian plants, and with descriptions of their natures and peculiarities, some of which were true and others quite imaginary. What was true and what was not true was frequently a puzzle to this philosopher, as it is to modern naturalists. He wrote, “The drug sellers and root cutters tell us some things which may be true, but other things which are merely solemn quackery. Thus they direct us to gather some plants, standing from the wind and with our bodies anointed; some by night, some by day, some before the sun falls on them. So far there may be something in their rules; but others are too fantastical and far-fetched. It is, perhaps, not absurd to use a prayer in plucking a plant; but they go further than this. We are to draw a sword three times round the mandragora, and to cut it looking to the west; again, to dance round it, and to use obscene language, as those who sow cumin should utter blasphemies. Again, we are to draw a line round the black hellebore, standing to the east, and praying; and to avoid an eagle either on the right or on the left; for they say if an eagle be near, the cutter will die in a year.”

This was the nonsense, out of which Theophrastus had to extricate the true wisdom of plants, and he tried to put aside fancies, legends, and the opinions of men, and to puzzle out the meaning of the similarities and differences of plants, by first of all learning and describing their construction, habits, methods of growth, and increase.

Only a fragment of the last of ten books on plants written by Theophrastus has come down to us. The writings made such an impression on the students that their general bearing has been transmitted, and the main points are as follows. Theophrastus classified plants by the manner in which they were reproduced, the localities where they were found, their size, as trees or shrubs or herbs, and according to their uses, as furnishing juices, pot-herbs, and seeds that may be eaten. The first book treated of the parts of the plant—the root, stem, leaves, flower, and seed, and the second of the manner in which plants seed, and the proper times for sowing seeds, and how to sow. In this part he mentions that some plants, evidently of the same kind, have seed and others not, or that there are different sexes in plants, the female bearing the seed. That he was a practical observer is proved by his writings on the method of the reproduction in the great palm trees, which are such striking features in the East. Moreover, he studied the way in which figs grew and the seed became fertile, and he compared the reproduction of the fig with that of the palm tree. The third, fourth, and fifth books are devoted to a consideration of trees, their various kinds, the places they come from, and the economical uses to which they may be applied. The sixth book treats of winter shrubs and spring plants; the seventh of pot-herbs; the eighth of plants yielding seeds used for food; and the ninth of those plants that yield useful juices, gums, resins, and other exudations. The love of the marvellous, however, creeps in here and there, and amongst good facts there are very considerable “tough yarns;” but these come from the old soldiers of Alexander the Great.

There is one thing most interesting in the works of this man, and it is the desire he had to make his knowledge useful to mankind. This is especially noticed in another work on the causes of plants, of which six parts remain to the present day. It is really a work on gardening and farming, with a good deal of pure and applied knowledge on botany. It is not everybody, nowadays, that can combine what is scientific, that is to say, exact knowledge, with useful and applied knowledge. Too frequently the scientific botanist does not teach gardening or farming; and certainly, as a rule, the writers on these last subjects are not scientific botanists, and, indeed, they are often of a very different kind of mind. It has been said of the works of Theophrastus that there is much valuable matter in them that deserves the attention of the botanist, and that a very little knowledge of botany will enable the reader to separate the chaff from the wheat.

So noted was the learning of this great man on other subjects, that his good work on plants remained the text-book of centuries; and, in fact, little or no satisfactory knowledge about plants, beyond that given to us by Aristoteles and Theophrastus, was discovered for many centuries.

The fall of Demetrius from power removed the protector of Theophrastus, and the ignorant anti-educationalist party of the day revived their persecutions. In the year 305 B.C. a political noodle managed to frame a law, and to get it passed by the ruling body of the day, which forbade all philosophers under pain of death to give any public instruction without permission of the State.

This curious law was passed in order to prevent the education of the people being advanced, and the result was that Theophrastus and several other teachers left Athens. Good sense, however, seems to have prevailed over ignorance and hostility to learning, and the law was abolished in the following year. Moreover, the proposer of it was fined the great sum of five talents for his folly. Then Theophrastus returned to Athens, and taught there until he died. The whole population followed his body to the grave.

It is a remarkable fact that the writings of Aristoteles and Theophrastus on plants, were not improved upon for many hundreds of years. They were both observers of nature, and their works contained all the knowledge on the subject, of their time. When the Romans obtained the supremacy in Europe, and had possessions in Asia and in Africa, men were not found amongst them who could add to the knowledge of the Greeks about plants; so the books of the two great men who were the fathers of botany were simply copied by their successors, or criticized, and doubtful novelties were added.

There were many Roman writers on agriculture, but few wrote on the nature and structure of plants, and amongst them the most celebrated was Caius Plinius Secundus, commonly called Pliny the Elder.

Where this great man was born is not known, but possibly it was at Como. He was of noble family, entered the army, and became a distinguished soldier. He was appointed Augur at Rome, and subsequently had supreme power in Spain. These were not apparently the positions which were likely to stimulate a young man of wealth to study natural history, and certainly, in later days, the military man and active politician have not proved, as a rule, enthusiastic students of plants and animals. Want of time and inclination are, of course, the usual excuses of such men, and the love of luxury and of intellectual idleness might be added also. Nevertheless there is an instance in the case of the elder Plinius, where a man, greatly and importantly occupied, spent much time in studying nature, in compiling the observations made by his predecessors, and in writing books which have given him a fame which will last with the world. In summer he began his work as soon as it was light; in winter, generally at one in the morning—never later than two, and sometimes earlier. No man, writes his nephew, spent less time in bed, and sometimes he would, without retiring from his books, indulge in a short sleep, and then pursue his studies. Before daybreak he went to the Emperor Vespasian, who chose to transact business at that hour, and when the Emperor had finished, Plinius returned to his studies. After a slender repast at noon, he would in the summer recline in the sun, and during the time some book was read to him, and he made extracts from the author. He used to say that “no book was so bad but something might be learned from it.” After this he had a cold bath and took refreshment and rest. Thus reinvigorated, he resumed his studies until supper, when a book was read to him, and he made remarks on it. This, of course, must have been an occasional method of passing the day, for no man could live without some hours of exercise and sleep. Probably he retired to sleep at eight under these circumstances, and had a good sleep in the hot hours of the day. When in the country all his time was devoted to study, except when he slept and bathed. He is said to have used a carriage instead of walking, and, unfortunately, but naturally, he got weak lungs and became corpulent.

Plinius laboured for many years at natural history and the other sciences, and he was a most diligent collector of information. A warrior and a statesman, yet he contrived to write a vast number of works, his books on natural history alone amounting to twenty-seven volumes. He appears to have known all that it was possible to know at his age of the world, and yet there was no great amount of new work put into his books. It has been very properly said that the loftiness of his ideas and the nobleness of his style enhance still more his profound learning. Naturally, as he copied much from other writers, and especially, in one part of botany which relates to medicine, from an author named Dioscorides, he could not examine into the truth of every statement which had been made. Hence Plinius retailed some curious stories now and then, which are more amusing than true; but, on the whole, he established, on solid grounds, the learning of his own and previous ages.

This active-minded man, who lived in luxury and had great responsibilities, is an example to many of the same class who do not care to enjoy the study of the beautiful nature around them. He lost his life whilst endeavouring to sustain the courage of his friends, during the great eruption of Vesuvius, when the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed. He was on shore at the time, and probably was suffocated by noxious fumes.

The name of Dioscorides has been mentioned as that of an author known to Plinius; he was born in Cilicia, at Anazarbus, and flourished during the reign of the Emperor Nero. Nothing is known about his early life, but it appears that he was a soldier, and possibly connected with the surgical and medical art in the army. Certain it is that he travelled over many countries—Greece, Italy, Gaul, and Asia Minor—gathering plants and studying, not so much their structures and mutual resemblances and differences, as their medical or healing powers. He obtained plants from travellers in India, and learned the merits of herbs and drugs from many nations. He wrote on the substances used in medicine in a Materia Medica, and named and briefly described between five and six hundred medicinal plants. Unfortunately Dioscorides wrote in a careless manner, and there is much nonsense mixed up with truth in his writings. But he was of use; he was not merely a student of the beauties of nature, but of the value of certain plants to man in his pain and trouble, and he founded the science of medical botany.

Aristoteles, Theophrastus, Plinius, and Dioscorides are the men of mark who raised botany and plant-learning out of their infancy and gave them a youthful vigour. They placed the method of learning, on its right basis. Instead of imagining what was true, and then collecting and studying plants to prove the correctness of the imagined notion, they began in the opposite direction. They strove to learn and discover facts,—truths, and then reasoned upon them. Ignorant people, and those men who have the minds of children, always like their opinions and ideas better than facts, and especially if the facts will not fit in with their notions. Such people do not know how hard it is to find out the truth in nature, how difficult it is for finite man to comprehend infinite wisdom. This was as true formerly as it is now, and hence the method of learning, taught by the earlier of those great men, was opposed to the understandings of the majority of their fellow men. They troubled the complacent ignorance of the day, and were therefore persecuted. Like brave men, they did not care for persecution, knowing that they did not deserve the wicked charges brought against them; they persevered, and not only enjoyed life much more than their opponents, but led good and useful lives.

The works of these men were studied by all the learned, during fifteen hundred years and more; they were the text-books of science during what are called the dark or middle ages, and although now out of date, they were the good seeds of knowledge, sown in difficulty, in those early days.

Aristoteles, Theophrastus, and Plinius were not only botanists, but naturalists in every sense, and the first named is especially celebrated as a student of and writer upon animals; he was a great zoologist. Theophrastus knew much about geology, and so did Plinius.

These men, then, brought the science of botany out of its childhood, and saw it partly on its way through its youth; they had removed it beyond the fanciful ideas and strange notions of the earliest writers on the subject, and had begun to classify plants, and to study the relations of plants to surrounding nature, and to the wants of man. Chemistry and the use of the microscope were unknown, and therefore progress in the necessary direction could not be made at that time of the world.

It must be remembered that botany does not consist in collecting, drying, and drawing plants alone, but it relates to everything about the vegetable kingdom of nature. The growth of the plant from the seed; how it lives, breathes, and its sap circulates; how starch, and sugar, and other products are formed—have to be considered. The manner of unfolding of the flower, the anatomy of its fruits, and of the leaves and stems and root, and the method by which the kind reproduces, and the decay of the plant have to be studied. Then the uses of plants, medicinal and as food, have to be treated. How they can be best grown, and how plants are distributed over the land at different heights, form other subjects; and the arrangement of plants in a classification founded on the similarity of their most important anatomical structures, and constituting what is termed a natural system, is one of the most necessary studies.