Page:Theophrastus - History of Stones - Hill (1774).djvu/257

 the other Earths, he ays, Melinum candidum et ipum, et optimum in Melo inula. And lib. 35. c. 7. peaking of the Painters of Antiquity, he ays, Quatuor coloribus olis, immortalia illa opera fecere, ex albis Melino, ex Silaciis Attico, ex rubris Sinopide Pontica, ex nigris Atramento. I mention thee two Paages, as the bet Way of judging certainly from Pliny; for he often errs, and, where he has Occaion to mention the ame Subtance a econd Time, frequently contradicts what he had before aid of it. This is to be oberved in too many Places in that Author, and has arien from this; that he was a general Collector, and often carelely put down what different Authors had aid of the ame Subtance, either under the ame, or under different Names, in different Places of his Work: Where two uch Authors had been both uncertain as to the Truth, and probably the World in general alo, they frequently made different Conjectures; and where one had erred, the other frequently corrected him. The Accounts of both, therefore, given by a third Peron in their own Words, in different Parts of that Author's Hitory, and that without mentioning them as the Opinions of different Perons, has been the Occaion of great Part of the Contradictions in that Writer. But where he has mentioned the ame Thing in different Places, and that with the ame Decription, I always judge he may be depended on; and that the general Opinion of the World was on his Side.

With this Account of the Melian Earth, as white, it is very urpriing that the generality of Authors, and even thoe of the firt Clas, have contantly imagined it to be yellow. The Occaion of the Mitake has been, that the Melinus Color of the Latins, of the Greeks, is yellow. This, they took it for granted, had its Origin from the Colour of the Melian Earth, a Subtance antiently ued in Painting, and which therefore they concluded mut be yellow, and decribed it accordingly. In this manner have numberles other Errors crept into Natural Hitory by Accident, and by Mitakes, and been afterwards acredly propagated by a ervile Set of Writers, who have never dared to think for themelves, but have taken upon trut whatever they have found in their Ancetors Works, however contrary to Reaon, and, in many Caes, even to the Tetimony of their Senes. The Occaion of this o general Error, in the preent Cae, is no more than the mitaking the Etymology of the Word, Melinus, which is not derived from , or , the Melian Earth here decribed, but from , pomum, an Apple; and exactly meant that kind of Yellow common on ripe Apples of many Sorts; and the trict Sene of the Verb , is, according to the mot correct Lexicographers, Colore luteo ee, ive pomum referente: Thee are their very Words. And hence, from an Error in a Subject foreign to the Matter, has happened, we ee, an egregious Error in that Study, and which has been