ECONOMIC PRODUCTIONS. 135 
between nutritious and poisonous roots. No inform- 
ation, indeed, would be more curious than that which 
should tell us the particular manner in which the 
virtues of vegetables and minerals were first dis- 
covered, and in what way it was found out that a 
plant naturally a deadly poison, could yet, by the ex- 
pulsion of its juices, be so prepared, as to become a 
most nutritious food — forming the chief sustenance 
of nearly a fifth part of mankind.* Discoveries of 
this sort, however, have seldom originated in design ; 
they have been made accidentally, generally by the 
uneducated savage. In proportion to the utility of 
the discovery, so has its knowledge been spread to 
others. All this, in short, had taken place, before 
the study of nature assumed either the Hae; (OF the 
intellectual character, of a science. 
(80.) Seeing, therefore, that all which is essential 
to our wants has been already discovered, the mere 
superficial reader will again enquire cuz bono? How 
are we to make this science practically useful? In 
what manner does it concern, or enter into the 
pursuits of, the merchant, the planter, or the agri- 
culturist? and what good can result to them by a 
a knowledge of such matters? We evade not these 
questions, because, in the view we are now taking 
of natural history, they are natural and just. 
(81.) Could it be shown that all those produc- 
tions of nature have been made known, which possess 
qualities applicable to the common purposes of life, 
* We allude to the mandioca root, from which the cassava 
bread of the West Indies, and the farinhia of Brazil, are made. 
K 4 
