man who plies his craft in the soil is taught how he should pursue his husbandry and where fruits must be found.
Careful attention, too, should be given in this method of generation, so that the illustration from the earth may hold good—in this way: There are some trees which bear their fruit, not nakedly, but under mixed conditions. The chestnut, the nut, and other similar growths, have a bark, thorny in appearance, and inside another, while, lastly, a thin skin encloses the kernel. So, in like manner, there are metals, also, and minerals lying hid in flesh and skin, such as are the ore of iron, the ore of silver, and so on. These have to be removed in order that, after separation, the desired fruit may be extracted. On the other hand, there is another kind which puts forth its fruits nakedly, as cherries, plums, grapes. From these nothing is thrown away, but all is useful and good. So in the aqueous fountain are found pure and naked silver, gold, coral, carabe, and the like. These are all so arranged by Nature that there may be different sorts of trees and of barks, in which the mineral lies, which also depend upon the variety and division of water, climate, and geographical position. That which lies hid within has to be extracted from the bark or shell, just as in the case of fruits. And yet further, as you see in the kernel a body and the kernel itself, so be well assured that, similarly, in the element itself there is a body and a spirit, so that the body has first to be sought for, and then the spirit in the body. Now, it is the spirit that makes the body, and so it makes also the mineral (or the nutriment). The mineral has one body, the fruit another. That is the same as saying that, although there may be gold in a body, and the body is worthless, because impure, and it must be separated by the goldsmith, so gold has a body which is not impure. There are two bodies. In the second is incorporated the fruit of the mineral, which need not be separated from that gold. So then the fruits are first developed out of the element into a tree, afterwards into a body, and within the first shell that which is precious and good. Just as man is a twofold body, a dense body which is worthless, and within this another body which is good, so is it with all growths. Whatever God has created He perfects its corporality by a similar process. He has made man in one way, a tree in another, and a stone in another. But He made man more carefully, because He would that man should be created in His own likeness, so that eternity, in which other created things have no share, might reside in man.
The same judgment is to be passed concerning the death of elements, because water has its own death no less than other things. Indeed, water is its own death, eating into, strangling, and consuming its own growth. We have proof of this in the earth. That which grows from it returns to it and perishes, so that no part of it any longer survives. So yesterday perishes and no man will ever see it again, and it is in like manner with the night past. In like manner also pass away all things born of the earth, which return to the earth, and are consumed by it, and yet it is not heavier by half an ounce then it was yesterday, nor is it heavier to-day than it was a thousand years ago.
