A wonderfull thing therefore it is, that from so small and base beginning we should grow to that passe in pride, that we must needs cut through great mountaines for to meet with marble: send out as farre as to the Seres for silke stuff to apparell us: dive downe into the bottom of the red sea for pearles: and last of all, sinke deepe pits even to the bottom of the earth, for the precious Hemerauld. And even at this day, some nations there be that live still in that sort, and no otherwise. For of the fruit of trees had wee our first food: their leaves and branches served to make us soft pallets and couches within the caves: and with their rinds and barke we clad and covered our nakednesse. And in truth, these treasures of hers lay long covered under the ground, insomuch as men were persuaded, that Woods and Trees were the last and onely goods left unto us and bestowed upon us by Nature. It remaineth now to discourse of those which the earth yeeldeth: and even they likewise are not without a soule in their kind (for nothing liveth which wanteth it:) that from thence we may passe to those things that lie hidden within the earth, and are to bee digged out of it: to the end, that no worke and benefite of Nature might overpasse our hands, and be omitted. HUS you see by that which hath been written before, what are the natures as well in generall, as particularly in parts, of all living and sensitive creatures within the compasse of our knowledge.