216 PHYSICAL SCIENCE BK. v 



the peace of the world if the seas could be 

 shut up. 



Still, as I said a little ago, we cannot put the 

 blame on God, our Author, if we corrupt His 



12 blessings and turn them into curses. He gave us 

 the winds to maintain the equable temperature of 

 earth and sky, to call forth or to repress the 

 waters, to nourish the produce of field and tree ; 

 the crops are brought to maturity, among other 

 causes, by their mere tossing in the wind, which 

 attracts the nourishment to the top, and by move- 

 ment prevents the stagnation of decay. He gave 

 the winds that we might gain acquaintance with 

 foreign lands. Man would have been an untutored 

 creature without much experience of the world if 



13 circumscribed by the bounds of his native soil. He 

 gave the winds that the blessings of each region 

 might become common to all ; not to convey across 

 the sea regiments of horse and foot, nor arms for 

 the destruction of mankind. If we simply estimate 

 nature's boons by the degraded uses to which they 

 have been put, there is nothing that we have not 

 received for our own hurt. Who is aught the better 

 of the gift of sight ? or of speech ? To whom is 

 life itself not a torment ? I defy you to find any- 

 thing of such undoubted utility that it cannot by 

 misuse be converted into a curse. So it is with the 

 winds : nature had designed them for a boon ; we 



14 have ourselves made them the opposite. They all 

 lead us to some disaster : one man has not the 

 same motive as his neighbour for putting to sea, but 

 none has a good one. Diverse temptations lead us 

 to essay the way. Above all, we love to go to sea 

 in order to damage some one. Plato, with whose 

 testimony I may close, has observed, with great 



