furnish
plants with most savoury juices for the feeding of herds and flocks.
Even sea-coasts that seem to be the most sterile and wild yield
sometimes either delicious fruits or most wholesome medicines that are
wanting in the most fertile countries. Besides, it is the effect of a
wise over-ruling Providence that no land yields all that is useful to
human life. For want invites men to commerce, in order to supply one
another's necessities. It is therefore that want which is the natural
tie of society between nations; otherwise, all the people of the earth
would be reduced to one sort of food and clothing, and nothing would
invite them to know and visit one another.

All that the earth produces, being corrupted, returns into her bosom,
and becomes the source of a new production. Thus she resumes all she has
given in order to give again. Thus the corruption of plants, and of the
animals she feeds, feed her, and improve her fertility. Thus, the more
she gives the more she resumes; and she is never exhausted, provided
they who cultivate her restore to her what she has given. Everything
comes from her bosom, everything returns to it, and nothing is lost in
it. Nay, all seeds multiply there.

Admire the plants that spring from the earth; they yield food for the
healthy, and remedies for the sick. Their species and virtues are
innumerable. They deck the earth, yield verdure, fragrant flowers, and
delicious fruits. Do you see those vast forests that seem as old as the
world? Those trees sink into the earth by their roots, as deep as their
branches shoot up to the sky. Their roots defend them against the winds,
and fetch up, as it were by subterranean pipes, all the juices destined
to feed the trunk. The trunk itself is covered with a tough bark that
shelters the tender wood from the injuries of the air. The branches
distribute, by several pipes, the sap which the roots had gathered up in
the trunk. In summer the boughs protect us with their shadow against the
scorching rays of the sun.

The farther we seek through the universe the more sure is her teaching.
That which we learnt from the earth and from plants is taught us again
by water, by the air, and by fire. It is the lesson of the skies, and of
the sun and the stars. The whole animal world teaches us the same. If we
turn from things that are large, we shall find wonders no less in the
infinitely little; if we turn from the bodies of animals to the study of
their instinct