nable
us to take an extensive prospect of the earth on which we dwell. We
shall then see the plains and the everlasting hills, the forests and the
rivers, and all the exuberance of production which nature brings
forth for the supply of her living progeny. We shall see multitudes of
animals, herds of cattle and of beasts of prey, and all the varieties
of the winged tenants of the air. But we shall also behold, in a manner
almost equally calculated to arrest our attention, the traces and the
monuments of human industry. We shall see castles and churches, and
hamlets and mighty cities. We shall see this strange creature, man,
subjecting all nature to his will. He builds bridges, and he constructs
aqueducts. He "goes down to the sea in ships," and variegates the ocean
with his squadrons and his fleets. To the person thus mounted in the
air to take a wide and magnificent prospect, there seems to be a sort
of contest between the face of the earth, as it may be supposed to have
been at first, and the ingenuity of man, which shall occupy and possess
itself of the greatest number of acres. We cover immense regions of the
globe with the tokens of human cultivation.

Thus the matter stands as to the exertions of the power of man in the
application and arrangement of material substances.

But there is something to a profound and contemplative mind much more
extraordinary, in the effects produced by the faculty we possess of
giving a permanent record to our thoughts.

From the development of this faculty all human science and literature
take their commencement. Here it is that we most distinctly, and with
the greatest astonishment, perceive that man is a miracle. Declaimers
are perpetually expatiating to us upon the shortness of human life.
And yet all this is performed by us, when the wants of our nature have
already by our industry been supplied. We manufacture these sublimities
and everlasting monuments out of the bare remnants and shreds of our
time.

The labour of the intellect of man is endless. How copious is the
volume, and how extraordinary the variety, of our sciences and our
arts! The number of men is exceedingly great in every civilised state of
society, that make these the sole object of their occupation. And this
has been more or less the condition of our species in all ages, ever
since we left the savage and the pastoral modes of existence.

From this view of the history of man we are led by an easy transition
t