8.  Plants reproduce themselves in so many different ways, that we can only touch upon the chief among them.  As to fruits themselves, who could review their varieties, their forms, their colours, the peculiar flavour, and the use of each of them?  Why do some fruits ripen when exposed bare to the rays of the sun, while others fill out while encased in shells?  Trees of which the fruit is tender have, like the fig tree, a thick shade of leaves; those, on the contrary, of which the fruits are stouter, like the nut, are only covered by a light shade.  The delicacy of the first requires more care; if the latter had a thicker case, the shade of the leaves would be harmful.  Why is the vine leaf serrated, if not that the bunches of grapes may at the same time resist the injuries of the air and receive through the openings all the rays of the sun?  Nothing has been done without motive, nothing by chance.  All shows ineffable wisdom. On the argument from design, cf. Aristotle, De Part. Anim. iii. 1, as quoted and translated by Cudworth, III. xxxvii. 3:  “A carpenter would give a better account than so, for he would not think it sufficient to say that the fabric came to be of such a form because the instruments happened to fall so and so, but he will tell you that it is because himself made such strokes, and that he directed the instruments and determined their motion after such a manner, to this end that he might make the whole a fabric fit and useful for such purposes.”  On the strength and weakness of the argument from design, in view of modern speculation, suggestive matter is contained in Dr. Eagar’s Buther’s Analogy and Modern Thought, p. 49 et sq.