10. "Let the earth bring forth." This short command was in a moment a vast nature, an elaborate system. Swifter than thought it produced the countless qualities of plants. It is this command which, still at this day, is imposed on the earth, and in the course of each year displays all the strength of its power to produce herbs, seeds and trees. Like tops, which after the first impulse, continue their evolutions, turning upon themselves when once fixed in their centre; thus nature, receiving the impulse of this first command, follows without interruption the course of ages, until the consummation of all things. [1563] Let us all hasten to attain to it, full of fruit and of good works; and thus, planted in the house of the Lord we shall flourish in the court of our God, [1564] in our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.
[1535] Gen. i. 11.
[1536] Empedocles, according to Plutarch (peri ton aresk, etc. v. 342) prota ton zoon ta dendra ek ges anadunai phesi, prin ton helion periaplothenai kai prin hemeran kai nukta diakrithenai.
[1537] Triticum repens.
[1538] On the history of this doctrine, of which Linnæus was the latest great exponent, and its contradiction in Darwin, see Haeckel's Schöpfungsgeschichte, vol. i. ch. 2.
[1539] "To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Wordsworth, Ode on Immortality.
[1540] Literally, knee--Latin geniculum. cf. Xen., Anab. iv. 5, 26, and Theoph. viii. 2, 4. "Knee-jointed" is a recognised English term for certain grasses.
[1541] "Taurorum (sanguis) pestifer potu maxime." Plin. xi. 90. Taurinus recens inter venena est. 2d. xxviii. 41. cf. Dioscorid. in Alexiph. 25.
[1542] cf. Galen. De Simp. Pac. iii.
[1543] ho mandragoras tous anthropous koimizei. Xen., Symp. ii. 24.
[1544] cf. Aratæus, De Morb. Aent. ii. 11.
[1545] The Black Hellebore, or Christmas Rose, is a recognised alternative. Whether this is the plant of Anticyra is doubtful.
[1546] puros=wheat. The root, which has nothing to do with pur, is found by Curtius in the Slavonic pyro=rye, the Bohemian pyr=quitch grass, the Lettish purji=wheat, and the Lithuanian pyragas=wheaten bread. (L. & S. in loc.)
[1547] cf. Virg., Georg. i. 93: "Aut Boreæ penetrabile frigus adurat." Ov. M. xiv. 763, Frigus adurat poma, and in Greek Arist., Meteor. iv. 5.
[1548] Matt. iv. 26-28.
[1549] cf. Horrescunt segetes. Virg.,Georg. iii. 39.
[1550] Gen. i. 11.
[1551] amphikomoi kai daseis. cf. Milton, "With frizzled hair implicit." P.L. vii.
[1552] cf. Milton, P.L., B. iv., "Flowers of all hue and without thorn the rose," and August. De Genesi contra Manichæos. i. 13.
[1553] cf. S. John xv. 1-6.
[1554] Isa. v. 1.
[1555] Matt. xxi. 33.
[1556] Ps. xxxiv. 7.
[1557] cf. 1 Cor. xii. 28.
[1558] Ps. lii. 8.
[1559] The phenomenon has been observed in later days, though Basil may be at fault in his account of the cause. When pines have been cleared away in North American forests young oaklings have sprung up. The acorn lay long hid, unable to contend against the pine, but, when once the ground was clear, it sprouted. This upgrowth of a new kind of tree had been accounted for partly by the burial of germs by jays, rooks, and some quadrupeds; partly by the theory of De Candolle and Liebig that roots expel certain substances which, though unfavourable to the vitality of the plant excreting them, are capable of supporting others. So, on the pine pressure being removed, the hidden seeds sprout in a kind of vegetable manure. cf. Sir Charles Lvell's Travels in the United States and Rough's Elements of Forestry, p. 19.
[1560] Ambrose, Hexæm. iii. 13, writes: Amygdalis quoque hoc genere medicari feruntur agricolæ, ut ex amaris dulces fiant fructus, ut et terebrent ejus radicem arboris, et in medium inserant surculum ejus arboris quam Græci peuchen, nos piceam dicimus: quo facto succi amaritudo deponitur.
[1561] On the argument from design, cf. Aristotle, De Part. Anim. iii. 1, as quoted and translated by Cudworth, III. xxxvii. 3: "A carpenter would give a better account than so, for he would not think it sufficient to say that the fabric came to be of such a form because the instruments happened to fall so and so, but he will tell you that it is because himself made such strokes, and that he directed the instruments and determined their motion after such a manner, to this end that he might make the whole a fabric fit and useful for such purposes." On the strength and weakness of the argument from design, in view of modern speculation, suggestive matter is contained in Dr. Eagar's Buther's Analogy and Modern Thought, p. 49 et sq.
[1562] cf. Jer. xvii. 6, LXX.
[1563] "Ac mihi quidem videtur, cum duæ sententiæ fuissent veterum philosophorum, una eorum qui censerent omnia ita fato fieri, ut id fatum vim necessitatis afferret, in qua sententia Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Aristoteles fuit; altera eorum, quibus viderentur sine ullo fato esse animorum motus voluntarii: Chrysippus tanquam arbiter honorarius, medium ferire voluisse...quanquam assensio non possit fieri nisi commota visa, tamen cum id visum proximam causam habeat, non principalem hanc habet rationem, ut Chrysippus vult, quam dudum diximus, non, ut illa quidem fieri possit, nulla vi extrinsecus excitata, necesse est enim assensionem viso commoveri, sed revertitur ad cylindrum, et ad turbinem suum, quæ moveri incipere, nisi pulsa non possunt: id autem cum accidit suapte natura, quod superest et cylindrum volvi, et versari turbinem putat." (Cic., De fato. xviii.)
[1564] cf. Ps. xcii. 13.