{ 9 z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



created before the germs of the first men were formed: these plants 

 and animals, whatever properties and powers they might have had, 

 were entirely useless, because utility, as we understand it, means the 

 service which a thing might render to man ; therefore, there was noth- 

 ing useful prior to man's advent in the world. 



Man is born, and all beings at once take rank in relation to him. 

 The wild beast, rushing to devour him, enters into the first category 

 of noxious things ; the poisonous plant reveals to him its baneful prop- 

 erties ; the thorns which prick his limbs, the insects which prey on his 

 body, are noxious to him in degrees varying according to the amount 

 of pain which he suffers or dreads. 



The timid animals that flee before him, the plant which neither in- 

 jures nor nourishes him, the hidden mineral lying in unseen veins 

 under his feet, are all either unimportant or useless. 



The useful is that which makes man's life more easy or more agree- 

 able. But we have agreed, in the hypothesis of the shipwrecked 

 sailor, that Nature by herself supplies us with very few useful things. 

 Excepting the soil which sustains us, the air we breathe, the water we 

 drink, there is nothing which, to my mind, is due to her. 



Our first resources, or, more properly speaking, all the gifts of hu- 

 manity, are the conquests of labor. 



Man can neither create nor destroy an atom of matter, yet he can 

 assimilate and identify himself with whatever suits him ; he can turn 

 aside whatever menaces him ; above all, he can adapt for his use and 

 employ for his profit, that which was originally valueless or even dan- 

 gerous. By means of labor he impresses the stamp of utility upon all 

 he touches, and thus little by little annexes, as it were, the entire earth. 



Utility proceeds from and returns to man. If we do not create 

 things themselves, we create their usefulness. But that costs some- 

 thing. Nothing is got for nothing. We are not Nature's spoiled 

 children. After man was created, he appears to have been told : " I 

 leave you to yourself. Whatever you produce is your own." 



Do you wish to see by some examples how man does his part and 

 becomes the producer of utility ? 



If, on leaving home an hour hence, you meet a lion at the bottom 

 of the stair, should you hesitate for an instant in regarding it as a 

 noxious animal ? Is not this true ? 



However, thanks to the strenuous exertions of several generations, 

 lions, driven from Europe, have now no abode save Africa. The dis- 

 tance which separates you from them enables you to think of them 

 with indifference. 



When an agile, a brave, and skilful man succeeds at the risk of his 

 life in accomplishing the trifling task of lodging a ball between a lion's 

 eyes, the animal is no longer noxious, nor even indifferent and useless. 

 Its skin is worth 100 francs ; it will make a rug. 



Suppose that, instead of shooting the brute, a prudent hunter, by 



