carce a rood of ground can be seen on
which he has not built, or sown, or planted, or around which lie has not
erected his walls or reared his hedges. Man, in this great department of
industry, is what none of his predecessors upon the earth ever were,--"a
fellow-worker" with the Creator. He is a mighty _improver_ of creation.
We recognize that as improvement which adapts nature more thoroughly to
man's own necessities and wants, and renders it more pleasing both to
his sense of the aesthetic and to his more material senses also. He adds
to the beauty of the flowers which he takes under his charge,--to the
delicacy and fertility of the fruits; the seeds of the wild grasses
become corn beneath his care; the green herbs grow great of root or
bulb, or bulky and succulent of top and leaf; the wild produce of nature
_sports_ under his hand; the rose and lily broaden their disks and
multiply their petals; the harsh green crab swells out into a delicious
golden-rinded apple, streaked with crimson; the productions of his
kitchen garden, strangely metamorphosed to serve the uses of his table,
bear forms unknown to nature; an occult law of change and development
inherent to these organisms meets in him with the developing instinct
and ability, and they are regenerated under his surveillance. Nor is his
influence over many of the animals less marked. The habits which he
imparts to the parents become _nature_, in his behalf, in their
offspring. The dog acquires, under his tutelage, the virtues of fidelity
to a master and affection to a friend. The ox and horse learn to assist
him in the labors of the fields. The udders of the cow and goat distend
beneath his care far beyond the size necessary in the wild state, and
supply him with rich milk, and the other various products of the dairy.
The fleece of the sheep becomes finer of texture and longer of fibre in
his pens and folds; and even the indocile silkworm spins, in his
sheltered conservatories, and among the mulberry trees which he has
planted, a larger, and brighter, and more glistening cocoon. Man is the
great creature-worker of the world,--its one created being, that, taking
up the work of the adorable Creator, carries it on to higher results and
nobler developments, and finds a field for his persevering ingenuity and
skill in every province in which his Maker had expatiated before him. He
is evidently--to adopt and modify the remark of Oken--God's image
"manifest in the flesh."