I.4 "a Plant is, as it were, an Animal"

The seventeenth-century push to taxonomize the world reoriented plants against animals, distancing them on the tree of life. In his famous plan for a universal language -- an all-encompassing system of communication linking orthoepy, orthography and natural taxonomy -- John Wilkins places the mandrake under "bacciferous herbs," beside the Potato of Virginia and the Herb Christopher. Laid out on a Ramist table of dichotomies, the shrieking nightshade is defined not in relation to its human form or hallucinogenic properties -- that is, not by what it resembles or produces -- but by the shape of the leaf and the quality of its fruit.