Page:Frost (1827) Some account of the science of botany.pdf/9



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I the honour of appearing before you to commence a Course of Lectures on Botany, for your worthy Professor, Sir, whose ill-health prevents his having the pleasure of meeting you this season; a circumstance very much to he regretted, and which places me in a situation of being little capable to supply his place, but, trusting to your indulgence to excuse the errors which may occur, I shall proceed to lay before you some observations by way of introduction.

In giving a Course of Lectures on any Science, it is usual for the Lecturer to deliver an Introductory Discourse, in which he endeavours to call the attention of, his auditors to the antiquity of it, by tracing it to the remotest period of time that references will admit of; and it is not unfrequently contended, that the more ancient the date of the origin of his particular science is, the more likely it is to excite a degree of admiration in his auditors. But it sometimes happens, that when men are endeavouring to stamp an imaginary value on any Science, by bringing forward the names of many of the Grecian and other schools, they ﬁnd so much doubt connected with their history, that one can only be surprised that they can think themselves warranted in promulgating the pretensions of some of those very early aspirers to Science. If we were to reflect a little concerning this mode of proceeding, we should ﬁnd that Botany, (although derived from the Greek word βοτάνη, an herb, or grass,) had not its origin with Æseulapius, Hippocrates, Dioscorides, or, indeed, we may say with any of the ancients; for, when we consider how very much the nomenclature has been altered, and in many cases entirely changed, and how widely Botany, as we define it, differs from what the notions of it were, the absurdity of attributing to them what in this instance they really never possessed, will be very obvious. What the Greeks