Chapter XV.
The amazing diversity of water! From it arises the variety of fruits that feed on it, and the difference of tears that fall from trees; to which is added an excuse for more detailed examination.
62. It is inexplicable to desire to investigate the properties of individual things, and to distinguish the manifest testimonies of their diversities, or to reveal hidden and secret causes with unfailing evidence. For, indeed, water is one and the same, and often transforms itself into different appearances: either yellow among the sand, or foamy among the rocks, or greener among the woods, or multicolored among the flowers, or brighter among the lilies, or more dazzling among the roses, or more liquid among the grass, or more turbid among the marsh, or clearer in the spring, or darker in the sea, assuming the color of the places through which it flows. It also changes in intensity in equal measure, so that it boils among vapors, cools among shadows, heats up when reflected by the sun, and turns gray when drenched in glacial moisture. Likewise, its taste itself changes, now rougher, now more bitter, now more intense, now more astringent, now sweeter depending on the quality of the substances with which it has been infused. It becomes rougher with unripe juices, pounded nut shell, and crushed leaves; it becomes more bitter with wormwood, more intense with wine, more astringent with garlic; it becomes heavy with poison, sweetened with honey. But if the juice of lentisk is indeed mixed with the fruits of terebinth or the inner part of the nut, it is easily transferred into a soft oil nature. However, since it is the nourisher of all the shrubs, it provides different uses to each. If it is watered with roots or descends poured from the clouds, it gives distinct powers to all, fattens the root, elevates the trunk, spreads the branches, makes the leaves green, nourishes the seeds of the fruits, and is accustomed to increase the fruit. Therefore, since the same nurse nourishes all things, some kinds of trees produce more bitter juices, others produce sweeter juices, some produce slower ones, others produce premature ones. They also differ among themselves in terms of sweetness. One sweetness is found in the vineyard, another in the olive tree, another in cherries, another in the river, distinguished in the apple, different in the date palm.
63. The taste of water itself is gentle in some places, rougher in others, and usually thicker. It also often varies in weight as in appearance. For in many places it is considered heavier, in many places lighter. Therefore, it is not surprising that when it differs from itself, the tears of trees, which are generated by the same water's inundation, also differ from each other. And since there is one cause for all, the uses are different for each one, the nature is different. The tears of the cherry tree have a different power than the tears of the mastic tree. Moreover, it is said that even drops of odoriferous balsam are produced by the sweating of aromatic woods of the East; and also that a different kind of tears is shed by the reeds of fennel-giant in Egypt and Libya, by the power, as it were, of a more secret nature. But why should I recount to you, though your attention is kindly, that amber is a tear of fennel-giant and that, as tears harden, so also does this material of such great solidity? Nor is this confirmed by insignificant evidence when tiny leaves or portions of the stems, or even certain small animals, are often found preserved in amber, which seems, while the drop was still soft, to have absorbed them and kept them solidified.
64. But why should I decide with cheap language when I have the deep and precious reasoning of nature, when that language is nourished by human ingenuity, while divine providence has shaped the nature of all things? Hence, like reins that hold back the flow of words, there must be restraint; lest we seem to profanely expose the distinctions of trees and the virtues of roots, and whatever is hidden and unexpected, as it is written (3 Kings 4:33), which are not even made known by Solomon himself; so that it seems to me that he could discuss the different types of plants, but could not fully explain all the reasons of creation.