The Summary of Physics Restored

179The specific forms of animals, and also of plants, are rational: not in the human manner, but in their own, according to the powers and character of their nature. For they have their own vital gifts, their own kinds of apprehension and knowledge, and their own predestined courses. The vital endowments of plants include the striving to generate their like, powers of multiplication, nourishment, growth, movement and sensation, and others of this kind. Signs of their knowledge are perceived in their skilful foreknowledge of seasons; their strict observance of changes as laws of Nature; their variation in accord with the movement of the Sun and Heaven; their fixing of roots, raising of stems, spreading of branches, unfolding of leaves and flowers, and shaping, colouring and ripening of fruits; their transformation of the Elements into nourishment; their breathing of life-giving power into seeds; and, finally, their establishment of the manifold distinctions of their nature and parts according to the wishes of Heaven and the soil.