There is yet another property of some kinds of wood with which I shall close this enumeration, namely, their almost endless durability when buried in moist earth; a property so opposite to others which vegetable substances possess, that it is altogether unexpected and inexplicable. It is, however, of the greatest utility; for without it, man could not have erected permanent structures on those wet and loose soils, which, from their peculiar fertility, are every where, and have ever been, the chosen seats of population; without this we could but seldom have constructed highroads which cross rivers; without this we could not have founded piers and made harbours; and without it, even Holland itself might still have been the bottom of the sea. *

All these are important ends in the plans of Providence; and that man's scepticism must be incurable, who does not perceive and acknowledge that the means I have detailed were created for the express accomplishment of these ends. It would be easy to pursue this subject further, and to show more in detail the adaptation and contrivances in question; but a mere specimen is all that the nature of this work admits of.

THIRD WEEK-THURSDAY.

ORIGIN OF THE ARTS.

CONSIDERING autumn as the storing season, when the fruits of the earth are reaped and laid up for use, we are naturally led to look forward, and inquire to what particular purposes these fruits are to be applied. This opens up to us a very wide field, in which the adaptation, of the gifts bestowed by the Creator, to the wants of man, and the adaptation, also, of the human powers and fa

* See Macculloch's Attributes of God, vol. iii." On the uses of vegetable substances to man.'

culties, to the appropriation and employment of these gifts, are wonderfully and most edifyingly displayed.

During the course of our investigations in the preceding volumes, we have seen an amazing diversity in the productions of Nature, and some of the ways in which these are made subservient to the subsistence and enjoyment of living beings, have been already pointed out. But there is one department, of very great interest, which has as yet been but partially explored; I mean that in which human art has been called forth to prepare the raw material, so as to adapt it to the circumstances and desires of our rational and aspiring race. On this department I now intend to enter. It is full of wonders, and will exhibit to us in a very remarkable light that providential discipline, already so frequently alluded to, by which the powers of the human mind are stimulated, exercised, and improved, and society advances step by step in the progress of civilization.

There are three kinds of necessaries which man requires in every state of society, from the rudest stage of savage life, to that of the most polished and civilized community, food, clothing, and shelter, and none of these does he possess without the exercise of some labour and ingenuity. In the more genial climate, indeed, where he first arose from the hands of his Creator, and where his fallen progeny, probably during the whole of the antediluvian ages, continued to reside, the two latter necessaries, clothing and a prepared habitation,-might be dispensed with without absolutely endangering his existence; but yet they are of such essential importance to his comfort, that, next to food, they would undoubtedly be the earliest objects of his attention; and it is worthy of remark, that he might obtain them all without exerting greater skill and labour than a human being without culture may readily be supposed to bestow. His food would be found scattered around him in the fruits, roots, and esculent vegetables, which Nature spontaneously produces; a sufficient supply of such scanty habiliments

as Nature demanded might be obtained in the simple form of woven leaves, of the inner bark of trees rudely prepared, and of the skins of dead animals dried in the sun; and for his place of residence he might resort to the shelter of the projecting rock, or natural cave, or, where he was unannoyed by the neighbourhood of ferocious wild beasts, he might carelessly throw himself, during his hours of sleep, under the ready shade of some wide-spread tree.

I am not now writing the actual history of man, and am anxious the reader should understand, that I do not believe our original forefathers really emerged from this lowest state of barbarism; for I cannot doubt that, if there are tribes to be found in this degraded condition, it is because they have lost the vantage ground on which they were at first placed by their Creator. Looking back to Noah, the second progenitor of the human family, for we need not recur to the antediluvian period, we find him already in possession of many of the improvements of civilization, and prepared, with his family, to take advantage of the arts which his ancestors had handed down to him, for procuring not merely the necessaries, but the conveniences and comforts of life. I merely assume a position, for the sake of illustrating an important principle.

When mankind have happened to be reduced to the low condition I have supposed, we have uniformly found that they have remained long stationary; and, indeed, it it is not very easy to see how, in the ordinary course of things, they should be readily emancipated from it.

It is true, that the country they inhabited, however wide its boundaries, would at length become too narrow for the support of the inhabitants, and the misery of want, rendering them desperate, would rouse them from their natural indolence, and force them to exert their dormant faculties; but the first and most obvious resource would be predatory incursions on their neighbours, which would do little more than add fero

city to their rude and brutal characters. From this lowest stage, therefore, I am not aware that the improvement of society ever proceeded as a natural result. In the history of all those nations, now advanced in the scale of society, which date their origin from a savage state, we find traditions, or historical notices, pointing to some particular era, whence their civilization took its rise; and when this is the case, we uniformly hear of some remarkable individual, commonly a stranger from some distant land, who stood forth among them as their leader and enlightened benefactor, and on whom their unenlightened but grateful hearts have conferred the honours of divinity. Or, otherwise, some nation advanced in intelligence, has coerced them by force of arms, and while it bent their minds under the burden of a foreign yoke, presented them with the blessings of foreign civilization. Of the one case, we have an example in the gifts bestowed by the Minerva, the Mercury, and the Ceres of the ancients; of the other, in the arts extended along with the conquering arms of Greece and Rome.

Such is the progress of actual history, but it suits our present purpose better to take the simple view of gradual development, without very nicely inquiring into the means by which it has been accomplished. The savage has been excited by some stimulus, no matter what, and begins to feel that he has wants ungratified, and is capable of exertions by which these wants may be supplied. He enters on a career of which no man has yet seen the termination. He desires to procure more abundant, more permanently secure, and more luxurious food, and he becomes a shepherd and an agriculturist; he has acquired a taste for variety and elegance in his clothing, and he becomes a manufacturer; he feels the comforts and conveniences of a well-constructed habitation, and architecture takes its place among the arts.

This career, though slow in its commencement and in its first stages, accelerates as it proceeds. Man is so constituted that success kindles hope and fires ambition;

enjoyment, instead of producing content, excites new desires; exertion, instead of producing fatigue, only creates skill, and opens the way to additional labours. The motion, once commenced, is carried along by its own impetus, and always accumulating, proceeds in a constantly increasing ratio. The objects on which it expends itself, are never exhausted. Nature is full of varied riches, and her treasury can never be emptied. In examining her resources new materials are ever discovered, or new powers are developed, or new uses are invented. The faculties of man keep pace with the bounties of Nature; as her stores multiply, his ingenuity increases along with his desire of possessing; and thus a constant system of action and reaction is kept up, which is powerfully and irresistibly bearing society forward in its course of improvement. The present has been justly said to be the age of exuberation, and to its excitement and progress there seems to be no assignable boundary.

Such is the effect produced by the correspondence of the external world, with the powers and faculties of the human mind; and so true it is, that the Creator has most wisely adjusted the one to the other, so as to cultivate the intellect, and give energy and success to the exertions of his rational creatures.

THIRD WEEK-FRIDAY.

HUMAN FOOD.-ITS PRINCIPLE.

I HAVE elsewhere adverted to the principle impressed on Nature by an intelligent and benevolent Creator, by which the necessity of labouring for the means of subsistence, is rendered a powerful and constantly acting stimulus for calling forth and giving a salutary employ

VOL. IV.

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