[148] So generously does he bestow his mercy that he shows it further in all its richness and profusion by passing, first from rational beings to the irrational, and from the irrational to plants and vegetation. I must proceed at once to these last, as we have treated the first two classes, mankind and those who are endued with animal life.
[149] On this third subject he gives the plain direction that no trees of the cultivated type are to be cut down, nor the lowland fields mischievously mown in the ear-bearing stage before the proper time, and in general no fruit is to be destroyed, in order that the human race may be well supplied with a rich stock of abundant kinds of food, and that this rich stock may consist, not only of necessaries, but also of things which make life comfortable. For the fruit of the corn-field is set apart as a necessary for the sustenance of men, but the numberless varieties of tree-fruits provide the comfortable life, and often in times of dearth a second line of sustenance.