PHYSICAL CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION. 55 
men; and the teachings of simple experience, on topics where 
natural philosophy has scarcely yet spoken, are not to be 
despised. 
In these humble pages, which do not in the least aspire to 
rank among scientific expositions of the laws of nature, I shall 
attempt to give the most important practical conclusions sug- 
gested by the history of man’s efforts to replenish the earth and 
subdue it; and I shall aim to support those conclusions by such 
facts and illustrations only as address themselves to the under- 
standing of every intelligent reader, and as are to be found 
recorded in works capable of profitable perusal, or at least con- 
sultation, by persons who have not enjoyed a special scientific 
training. 
which individual guaranties are insufficient. Hence public roads, canals, rail- 
roads, postal communications, the circulating medium of exchange whether 
metallic or representative, armies, navies, being all matters in which the na- 
tion at large has a vastly deeper interest than any private association can have, 
ought legitimately to be constructed and provided only by that which is the 
visible personification and embodiment of the nation, namely, its legislative 
head. No doubt the organization and management of these institutions by 
government are liable, as are all things human, to great abuses. .The multi- 
plication of public placeholders, which they imply, is a serious evil. But the 
corruption thus engendered, foul as it is, does not strike so deep as the rot- 
tenness of private corporations; and official rank, position, and duty have, in 
practice, proved better securities for fidelity and pecuniary integrity in the 
conduct of the interests in question, than the suretyships of private corporate 
agents, whose bondsmen so often fail or abscond before their principal is de- 
tected. 
Many theoretical statesmen have thought that voluntary associations for 
strictly pecuniary and industrial purposes, and for the construction and con- 
trol of public works, might furnish, in democratic countries, a compensation 
for the small and doubtful advantages, and at the same time secure an ex- 
emption from the great and certain evils, of aristocratic institutions. The 
example of the American States shows that private corporations—whose rule 
of action is the interest of the association, not the conscience of the indi- 
vidual—though composed of ultra-democratic elements, may become most 
dangerous enemies to rational liberty, to the moral interests of the common- 
wealth, to the purity of legislation and of judicial action, and to the sacred- 
ness of private rights. 
