73 
similar passage in Huber on Bees, which asserts that all the 
wisdom, ingenuity, and power of the Bee, were given exclu- 
sively for the benefit of man. 
* There is something ludicrous, if it were not a gross im- 
peachment of divine wisdom, in this sentiment, which has, 
nevertheless, established itself among us as a standing maxim 
or article of faith, and pervades all our writings, as wellas our 
ordinary style of language.  Whatsoever we have subdued by 
fraud, force, or ingenuity, becomes, according to this sweeping 
canon, our indisputable property, and was made entirely for 
our use. 
** [t was, no doubt, part of the scheme of creation, that man 
should convert to his use such of the productions of nature as 
were necessary to his physical existence. So far it may be 
admitted, they were made for his use. But is he singular in 
this respect? Is it not a general system of adaptation, which 
is common to him with every organized being upon earth ? 
Man draws the greater part of his nourishment from the 
vegetable kingdom, but so does a vast proportion of the infe- 
rior animals, while others share with him in the spoil of the 
animal kingdom. Man appropriates to himself the produce 
of the industry of certain classes of animals, but does that 
establish the principle, that those animals were made for his 
use, and for no other purpose? This we can hardly admit, 
without the counter admission, that man was made for the use 
of those animals that derive their nourishment from his car- 
cass, or from the produce of his industry. Thus the mite, 
lodged in the crevice of a Cheshire cheese, and the familiar 
little insect, the emblem of love, that sucks its aliment from 
human blood, have a right to consider dairy-maids and 
beggars’ brats as created expressly for their use. A closer 
study of the ceconomy of nature would go far to cure us of 
this folly, by opening to our view that system of mutual de- 
pendence and reciprocation of services established throughout | 
the whole chain of existence, which is altogether irreconcileable 
with the gratuitous assumption that every thing was made 
for us. The word of God, which gives man the rule over the 
creatures, nowhere says they were created for Aim." 
