INDEX. 243 



There are also a certain number of vegetable materials more 

 or less prepared, secreted, or digested for us by animals, such 

 as wax, honey, silk, and cochineal The properties of these 

 require more complex definitions, but they have all very intel- 

 ligible and well-established names. 'Tea' must be a general 

 term for an extract of any plant in boiling water: though when 

 standing alone the word will take its accepted Chinese mean- 

 ing : and essence, the general term for the condensed dew of 

 a vegetable vapour, which is with grace and fitness called the 

 ' being ' of a plant, because its properties are almost always 

 characteristic of the species ; and it is not, like leaf tissue or 

 wood fibre, approximately the same material in different 

 shapes ; but a separate element in each family of flowers, of a 

 mysterious, delightful, or dangerous influence, logically inex- 

 plicable, chemically inconstructible, and wholly, in dignity of 

 nature, above all modes and faculties of form. 



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