OF FOREST-TREES. 



363 



a while more distinctly display every limb and member completely per- BOOK 

 feet, with all their apparel, tire, and trim of beautiful and flourishing ^-"^ 

 vegetables, endowed with all the qualities of the species ? 



Contemplate we again what it is which begins the motion, and kindles 

 the flame of these automata, causing them first to radiate in the earth, 

 and then to display their top in the air, so different poles (as I may call 

 them) in such different mediums. What it is which imparts this elastic, 

 peristaltic, and other motions, so very like to the sensible and perfectest 

 animal. How they elect, and then introsume 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 assi- 

 milate, separate, and distribute these several supplies ; how they con- 

 coct, transmute, augment, produce, and nourish without separation of 

 excrements, (at least to us visible,) and how without violation of vir- 

 ginity they generate their like. 



For their preservation, nature has invested the whole tribe and nation 

 (as we may say) of vegetables, with garments suitable to their naked and 

 exposed bodies, temper, and climate : thus some are clad with a coarser, 

 and resist all extremes of weather ; others with more tender and delicate 

 skins and scarfs, as it were, and thinner raiment. Quid folioriim de- 

 scribam diversitates f what shall we say of the mysterious forms, variety, 

 and variegation of the leaves and flowers, contrived with such art, yet 

 without art ; some round, others long, oval, multangular, indented, 

 crisped, rough, smooth, and polished, soft and flexible at every tremulous 

 blast, as if it would drop in a moment, and yet so obstinately adhering, 

 as to be able to contest against the fiercest winds that prostrate mighty 

 structures ! — There it abides till God bids it fall : for so the wise Dis- 

 poser of things has placed it, not only for ornament, but use and pro- 

 tection both of body and fruit ; from the excessive heat of summer, and 



" In the corn tribe, the flour of the grain is converted into a milky juice_, which nourishes 

 the infant germ till its roots become sufficiently strong to extract nourishment from the 

 earth. At this early period, there is a manifest analogy between the animal and vegetable 

 worlds ; and if no other proof could be brought of the existence and wisdom of a Supreme 

 Being, this alone would, in my opinion, be conclusive. See this beautiful subject treated of 

 at large in Vol. I. p. 33. 



