Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

it. PREFACE.
cause it is in vain that we know betony is good
for head-achs, or self-heal for wounds, unless we
can distinguish betony and self-heal from one
another, and so it runs through the whole study.
We are it taught by to know what plants belong
to what names, and to know that very distinctly ;
and we shall be prevented by that knowledge from
giving a purge for an astringent, a remedy
poison for a
; let us therefore esteem the study of
botany, but let us know, that this use of the distinctions
it is gives the true end of it ; and let us
respect those, who employ their lives in establishing
those distinctions upon the most certain foun-
dation, upon making them the most accurately,
and carrying them the farthest possible : these
are the botanists ; but with all the gratitude we
owe them for their labours, and all the respect
we shew them on that consideration, let us understand
them as but the seconds in thi3 science. The
principal are those who know how to bring 'their
discoveries to use, and can say what are the ends
that will be answered by those plants, which they
have so accurately distinguished. The boy col-
lects the specimens of herbs with great care,
and bestows ten years in pasting them upon pa-
their names to them : he does
per, and writing
well. When he grows a man, he neglects
his
useful labours ; and perhaps despises himself for
the misemployment of so much time : but if he
has, to the knowledge of their forms, added afterward
the study of their virtues, he will be
fir from censuring himself for all the pains he
took to that end.
He who wishes well to science and to man-
kind, must wish this matter understood: and this
is the wiy to bring a part of knowledge into credit,
which, as \t is commonly practised, is not a