318 THE NATURAL THEOLOGY OF THE FUTURE, [xin. 



one continuous undercurrent of the very opposite of 

 all this. I pray you bear with me, even though I may 

 seem impertinent. But what do we find in the Bible, 

 with the exception of that first curse ? That, remember, 

 cannot mean any alteration in the laws of nature by 

 which man's labour should only produce for him hence- 

 forth thorns and thistles. For, in the first place, any 

 such curse is formally abrogated in the eighth chapter 

 and twenty-first verse of the very same document "I 

 will not again curse the earth any more for man's sake. 

 While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold 

 and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not 

 cease." And next, the fact is not so ; for if you root 

 up the thorns and thistles, and keep your land clean, 

 then assuredly you will grow fruit-trees and not 

 thorns, wheat and not thistles, according to those laws 

 of Nature which are the voice of God expressed in 

 facts. 



And yet the words are true. There is a curse upon 

 the earth, though not one which, by altering the laws 

 of nature, has made natural facts untrustworthy. 

 There is a curse on the earth; such a curse as is 

 expressed, I believe, in the old Hebrew text, where the 

 word " adamah " (correctly translated in our version 

 " the ground ") signifies, as I am told, not this planet, 

 but simply the soil from whence we get our food; 

 such a curse as certainly is expressed by the Septuagint 

 and the Vulgate versions : " Cursed is the earth " 

 ev TOIS epyois <roi> ; " in opere tuo/' as the Vulgate has it 

 " in thy works." Man's work is too often the curse 

 of the very planet which he misuses. None should 

 know that better than the botanist, who sees whole 

 regions desolate, and given up to sterility and literal 



