[42] Now in the original creation of all things, as I have said already, God caused all shrubs and plants to spring out of the earth perfect, having fruits not unripe but at their prime, to be perfectly ready for the immediate use and enjoyment of the animals that were forthwith to come into being.
[43] God then enjoins the earth to give birth to all these, and the earth, as though it had been long pregnant and in travail, brings forth all kinds of things sown, all kinds of trees, and countless kinds of fruits besides. But not only were the several fruits nourishment for animals, but also a provision for the perpetual reproduction of their kind, containing within them the seed-substances. Hidden and imperceptible in these substances are the principles or nuclei of all things. As the seasons go round these become open and manifest.
[44] For God willed that Nature should run a course that brings it back to its starting-point, endowing the species with immortality, and making them sharers of eternal existence. For the sake of this He both led on the beginning speedily towards the end, and made the end to retrace its way to the beginning. For it is the case both that the fruit comes out of the plants, as an end out of a beginning, and that out of the fruit again, containing as it does the seed in itself, there comes the plant, a beginning out of an end.