Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/301

 Pliny, and Dioscorides. One is also to consider, that this is a much more laborious Business, than the Knowledge of Fowls, Fishes, and Quadrupeds. The Confusion in which the Ancients left Botanical Knowledge, shews how little they understood it. And, which is still more remarkable, it is not only in Indian or Chinese Rareties, that our Botanical Knowledge excels theirs; but in the Productions of Countries, equally accessible to them, as to us. There are no new Species in Europe or Asia, which the Ancient Herbarists could not have discovered; no new Soils to produce them without Seed, in case such a Thing were ever naturally possible. Let but a Man compare Mr. Rays Catalogue of English Plants, and those other numerous Catalogues of the Plants of other Countries, drawn up by other Modern Botanists, with the Writings of Pliny and Dioscorides; let him run over Rays General History, or, if that be not at hand, Gerard's, Parkinson's, or John Bouhines Herbals, or Gaspar Bauhines Pinax; and deduct every Plant, not growing wild, within the Limits of the Roman Empire, and he will see enough to convince him, that not only this Part of Knowledge is incomparably more exact and large than it was for-