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 name, or 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 ad 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 



