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There be that profess to believe that all bodies are made of water,
and may be reduced back again to water only: they endeavour to demonstrate
it thus:
Take a willow, or any speedy-growing plant, newly rooted in a box,
or barrel full of earth, weigh them exactly when the trees begin
to grow and then weigh them altogether after the tree is increased
from its first rooting, to weigh an hundred pound weight more than
when it was first rooted and weighed; and you shall find this augment
of the tree to be without the diminution of one drachm weight of
the earth. Hence they infer this increase of wood, to be from water
or rain, or from dew, and not to be from any other element. And
they affirm, they can reduce this wood back again to water; and
they affirm also, the same may be done in any animal or vegetable.
And this I take to be a fair testimony of the excellency of my element
of water.
The water is more productive than the earth. Nay, the earth hath
no fruitfulness without showers or dews; for all the herbs, and
flowers, and fruits, are produced and thrive by the water; and the
very minerals are fed by streams that run under ground, whose natural
course carries them to the tops of many high mountains, as we see
by several springs breaking forth on the tops of the highest hills;
and this is also witnessed by the daily trial and testimony of several
miners.
Nay, the increase of those creatures that are bred and fed in the
water, are not only more and more miraculous, but more advantageous
to man, not only for the lengthening of his life, but for preventing
of sickness; for it is observed by the most learned physicians,
that the casting off of Lent, and other fish-days, which hath not
only given the lie to so many pious, wise founders of colleges,
for which we should be ashamed, has doubtless been the chief cause
of those many putrid, shaking, intermitting agues, unto which this
nation of ours is now more subject, than those wiser countries that
feed on herbs, sallets, and plenty of fish; of which it is observed
in story, that the greatest part of the world now do. And it may
be fit to remember that Moses, Lev. xi. Deut. xiv. 9, appointed
fish to be the chief diet for the best commonwealth that ever yet
was.
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