SYLVA 263 



very like to the sensible, and perfectest animal; how 

 they elect, and then intro-sume their proper food, and 

 give suck, as it were, to the yet tender infant, till it 

 have strength and force to prey on, and digest the 

 more solid juices of the earth ; for then, and not till 

 then, do the roots begin to harden : Consider how they 

 assimilate, separate and distribute these several sup- 

 plies ; how they concoct, transmute, augment, produce 

 and nourish without separation of excrements (at least 

 to us visible) and generate their like, whilst furnished 

 with tubes, ovaries, umbilical and other vessels, the 

 principle of any species, are safely reserved and nour- 

 ished till delivered without violation of virginity : By 

 what exquisite percolations and fermentations they 

 proceed : for the heart, fibers, veins, nerves, valves and 

 anastomotas, rind, branches, leaves, blossoms, fruit ; for 

 the strength, colour, taste, odour and other stupendous 

 qualities, and distinct faculties, some of them so re- 

 pugnant and contrary to others ; yet in so uniform and 

 successive a series, and all this performed in the dark, 

 and those secret recesses of nature : With what l ana- 

 logy the solider and inflexible texture of parts of trees 

 agree with the bones, ribs, vertibrae, &c. nay, with the 

 very brains and marrow, and the more pliable, fitted to 

 such various motions, have induced some to allow them 

 place among the class of animals, is astonishing : To 

 these, and for their preservation, nature has invested 

 the whole tribe and nation (as we may say) of vege- 

 tables, with garments suitable to their naked and 

 exposed bodies, temper and climate : Thus some are 

 clad with a courser, and resist all extremes of weather ; 

 others with more tender, and delicate skins and scarfs 



1 See Scaliger Exerc. 14. of respondent parts, within and without, from head 

 to foot. 



