are only created for the sake of animals, and animals are not created for the sake of plants. Some one will urge that a plant requires food which is easily obtained and poor, yet it needs it very regularly and continuously, and without interruption. If it were agreed that a plant has an advantage over an animal, it would follow that things which are inanimate[1] were better and nobler than those which are animate; yet we see that the function of the animal is nobler and better than that of the plant, and we find in the animal all the virtues which are present in the plant and many others.[2] Empedocles said that plants had their birth when the world was yet small and its perfection not attained, while animals were born after it was completed.[3] But this account of creation does not suit the facts, for the world as a whole has existed continuously from eternity and has never ceased to produce animals and plants and 818aall their species. In every kind of plant there is natural heat and moisture, and, when these are consumed, the plant will become weak and grow old and decay and dry up.[4] Some people call this corruption, others do not.
3Some trees contain a gummy substance, such as resin and almond-gum and myrrh, and frankincense, and gum-arabic. Some trees have fibres[5] and veins and flesh[6] and wood and bark and marrow within them; some trees consist almost wholly of bark. In some the fruit is underneath the bark, that is, between the bark and the wood. Some parts of the tree are simple, such as the moisture found in it and the fibres[5] and veins; other parts are- ↑ i.e. only partly possessed of ψυχή or anima. The suggested advantage is that it can subsist on easily obtained and poor nutriment,—it has, however, the disadvantage that it requires this constantly.
- ↑ Cf. H. A. 588b 7 ff.
- ↑ Meyer compares Plut. de Plac. Phil.' v. 26 Ἐμπεδοκλῆς πρῶτα τῶν ζῴων τὰ δένδρα ἐκ γῆς ἀναδῦναι φησι, πρὶν ἥλιον περιαπλωθῆναι καὶ πρὶν ἡμέραν καὶ νύκτα διαριθῆναι.
- ↑ Cf. de long. et brev. vit. 466a 18 ff.; de respir. 478b 27.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Meyer shows that the origin of this chapter is Theophr. Hist. Plant., and that several words have been mistranslated in the Arabic or Latin version. Nodi et venae are the ἶνες (fibrae) καὶ φλέβες of Theophr. l. c. i. 2, 5.
- ↑ Lignum et ventrem are the ξύλον καὶ σάρκα of Theophr. l. c. Meyer shows that there is a mistranslation due to a confusion of the Arabic mad (=carnem) and maadd (=ventrem).
