SYLVA 267 



aged oak : So as Fr. Hernander, Gracilasco de la 

 Urga, and other l travellers, speaking of the coco, 

 aloes, wild-pine of Jamaica, &c. affirm there is nothing 

 necessary for life (si effet rebus humanis modus] , which 

 these polychrests afford not. 



What may we say then of innumerable other trees, 

 fitted for the uses nature has designed them, especially 

 for timber, and all other fabrile employments ? But 

 I cease to expatiate farther on these wonders, that it 

 may not anticipate the pleasures which the serious 

 contemplator on those stupendous works of nature, 

 (or rather God of nature) will find himself even rapt'd 

 and transported, were it only applied to the product- 

 ion of a single wood. 



Let the further curious, or those who may take 

 these wonders for a florid epiphonema only of this 

 work ; add to the most ancient naturalists, what they 

 will find improved on this ample subject, in the late 

 excellently learned and judicious Malphigius, Grew, 

 Ray, Senertus, Faber, and others who have defin'd 

 these astonishing operations of nature, causes and 

 effects, with the greatest and exactest aicplfaia imagin- 

 able. But a wise and a thinking man can need 

 none of these topics ; in every hedge, and every field 

 they are before him; and yet we do not admire them 

 because they are common and obvious : Thus we 

 fall into the just reproach given by one of the philo- 

 sophers (introduced by the Orator), 2 to those who 

 slighted what they saw every day, because they every 

 day saw them : Quasi novitas nos quom magnitude rerum^ 

 debeat ad exquirendas causas excitare : As if novelty only 

 should be of more force to engage our enquiry into 



1 Vide Ray H. PL L. xxi. c. 7. 



2 Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1. 2. 



