Chap. 24. ATwtifeof BO DIES. 273 



{ that ftill make every new thing become leffe homogeneall,ther 

 the former was, according to the nature of heat, mingling more 

 and more different bodks together) untill that fubftancc be 

 produced , which we confider in the period of all theft mu- 

 tations. 



And this is evident out of many experiences: as for example 

 in trees; the bark which is oppofed to the north wind, is harder 

 and thicker then the contrary.fide which is oppofed to the fbuth, 

 and a great difference will appear in the grain of the wood;even 

 fo much, that skilfull people will by feeling and feeing a round 

 piece of the wood after the tree is felled, tell you in what fitua- 

 tion it grew, and which way each fide of that piece looked. And 

 Jofephus Acofta writeth of a tree in America, that on the oue 

 fide being fituated towards great hills, and on the other being 

 expofed to the hot funne ; the one half of it flourifheth at one 

 time of the ycar> and the other half at the oppofite ieafbn. And 

 fbmc fuch like may be the caufc of the ft range effects we fbme- 

 times fee of trees, flourifliing or bearing leaf* at an unfeafbnable 

 time ofthc year; as in particular,in the famous okc in the New- 

 foreft,and in fome others in our Ifland: m which peradventurc 

 the foyl they grow in, may do the fame effect, as the winds and 

 funne did in the tree that Acofta raaketh mention of. For we 

 dayly fee how fbme foils arc fo powerfull over fome kind of 

 corn, that they will change the very nature of it ; fo that, you 

 (hall reap oats or ric, after you have fown wheat there. 



Which Qiewcth evidently thatfince the outward circumftan- 

 ces can make the parts or the whole of any fubftance, become 

 different from what they were at the firtt; generation is not 

 made by aggregation of like parts to prefuppofed like ones: nor 

 by a fpecificall worker within; but by the compounding of a 

 feminary matter, with the juice which accructh to ft from with- 

 out, and with the fteams of circumftant bodies; which by an or- 

 dinary courfe of nature* arc regularly imbibed in it by degrees; 

 and which at every degree, do change it into a. different thing> 

 fuch an one as is capable to refult out of the prelent compound, 

 ( as we have faid before ) untill it arrive to its full per- 

 fection. 



Which yet is not the utmoft period of natures changes; for 6. 



S from 



