66 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



(60.) Armed with such powers and resources, 

 it is no wonder if the enterprise of man should 

 lead him to form and execute projects which, to 

 one uninformed of their grounds, would seem alto- 

 gether disproportionate. Were they to have been 

 proposed at once, we should, no doubt, have re- 

 jected them as such : but developed, as they have 

 been, in the slow succession of ages, they have 

 only taught us that things regarded impossible in 

 one generation may become easy in the next ; and 

 that the power of man over nature is limited only 

 by the one condition, that it must be exercised in 

 comformity with the laws of nature. He must study 

 those laws as he would the disposition of a horse he 

 would ride, or the character of a nation he would 

 govern ; and the moment he presumes either to 

 thwart her fundamental rules, or ventures to mea- 

 sure his strength with hers, he is at once rendered 

 severely sensible of his imbecility, and meets the 

 deserved punishment of his rashness and folly. 

 But if, on the other hand, he will consent to use, 

 without abusing, the resources thus abundantly 

 placed at his disposal, and obey that he may com- 

 mand, there seems scarcely any conceivable limit to 

 the degree in which the average physical condition 

 of great masses of mankind may be improved, their 

 wants supplied, and their conveniences and comforts 

 increased. Without adopting such an exaggerated 

 view, as to assert that the meanest inhabitant of a 

 civilized society is superior in physical condition to 

 the lordly savage, whose energy and uncultivated 

 ability gives him a natural predominance over his 

 fellow denizens of the forest, at least, if we compare 



