A Treat! ft f BODIES. Chap.a 4. 



all chefc feverall quantities, you will find them far to exceed the 

 quantity of one pound: which it would not do, if every pound of 

 letuce were made up of feverall different fimilar parts actually 

 in ic, that are cxtra&ed by different fubftances of the natures of 

 thole parts; and that no fubftance could be encreafed by it, un- 

 leffe parts of its nnture were originally in the letticc. 

 5- On the other fide, if we but caft our eye back upon the prin- 



opinion c^cer- ciples we have laid, where we difcourfc of the composition of 

 ning the enc- bodies': we fhall difcern how this work of changing one thing 



ration oh am- . , ... ... . " . 



mais Declared into another, either in nutrition, in augmentation, or in genera- 

 and confirmed. c j on . w ji[ a pp ear nO t oncly poflible, but eafie to be effected. For 

 out of them it is made evident how the feverall varieties of (b-. 

 lid and liquid bodies; all differences of naturall qualities, all 

 confidences, and whatfbever e!fe bclongeth to fimilar bodies j 

 refulteth out of the pure and finglc mixture of rarity and den- 

 fity; fo that to make all fuch varieties as are neceffary, there is 

 no need of mingling, or of feparating any other kinds of parts: 

 but onely an art or power to mingle in due manner, plain, rare 

 and dcnfe bodies one with an other. Which very action and 

 none other ( but with excellent method and order, fuch as be- 

 cometh the great Architect that hatli defigned it ) is performed 

 in the generation of a living creature : which is made of a 

 fubftance at the firft, farre unlike what it afterwards grovveth 

 to be. 



If we look upon this change in groflTe, and confidcr but the 

 two extremes (to wit, the firft fubftance, of which a living crea- 

 ture is made- and it felf in its full perfection ) I confefle, it may 

 well feem incredible how fo excellent a creature can derive its 

 origine from fo mean a principle, and fo far remote and differ- 

 ing from what it groweth to be. But if we examine it in retail, 

 and go along anatomifing it in every ftep and degree that it 

 changeth by; we fhall find that every immediate change is fb 

 near, and fo palpably to be made by the concurrent caufes of the 

 matter prepared; as we muft conclude it cannot polfiby become 

 any other thing then juft what it doth become. 



Take a bean, or any other feed, and put it into the earth, and 

 let water fall upon it; can it then choofe but that the bean muft 

 fwcll? The bean fwelling, can it cfioofe but break the skin? The 

 skin broken, can it choofe ( by reafon of the heat that is in it ) 



but 



