knowledge is yet imperfect, are not without their use; as they encourage
the execution of laborious experiments, or the investigation of
ingenious deductions, to confirm or refute them. And since natural
objects are allied to each other by many affinities, every kind of
theoretic distribution of them adds to our knowledge by developing some
of their analogies.

The Rosicrucian doctrine of Gnomes, Sylphs, Nymphs, and Salamanders, was
thought to afford a proper machinery for a Botanic poem; as it is
probable, that they were originally the names of hieroglyphic figures
representing the elements.

Many of the important operations of Nature were shadowed or allegorized
in the heathen mythology, as the first Cupid springing from the Egg of
Night, the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, the Rape of Proserpine, the
Congress of Jupiter and Juno, Death and Resuscitation of Adonis, &c.
many of which are ingeniously explained in the works of Bacon, Vol. V.
p. 47. 4th Edit. London, 1778. The Egyptians were possessed of many
discoveries in philosophy and chemistry before the invention of letters;
these were then expressed in hieroglyphic paintings of men and animals;
which after the discovery of the alphabet were described and animated by
the poets, and became first the deities of Egypt, and afterwards of
Greece and Rome. Allusions to those fables were therefore thought proper
ornaments to a philosophical poem, and are occasionally introduced
either as represented by the poets, or preserved on the numerous gems
and medallions of antiquity.