4 INTRODUCTION. 



idle dominion, a mere consumption of that which he 

 finds spontaneously around him, in the state in which 

 it is found. It is a dominion of improvement and for 

 the exercise of the mind, as well as for the satisfaction 

 of the mere animal wants. These latter are common 

 to the whole creation : the meanest animal, the most 

 lowly vegetable finds its food, and protects itself from 

 the weather, in a manner far more certain and success- 

 ful than man, if he, not elevating himself above the 

 brutes of the field, do not exercise his higher and 

 nobler powers. In those countries where man im- 

 proves nothing, and cultivates nothing, he is the most 

 abject creature to be found, and suffers more privation 

 and misery than the plants and the animals. In those 

 cases he is without his power ; therefore, has not taken 

 upon him his dominion ; and, instead of being, as he 

 ought to be, the ruler and governor of the rest of the 

 creation, he is the slave of the laws and instincts of 

 these : and he is so, just because, by being ignorant of 

 those laws and instincts, he is incapable of turning them 

 to his use. 



To improve that which he uses is the characteristic 

 of man, the image of the Creator which is stamped upon 

 him ; and he is the only inhabitant of the world to 

 whom this power has been given ; and though one 

 grand means of effecting this important end, be the 

 treasuring up of knowledge, so that every succeeding 

 generation may turn to account the collected wisdom of 

 all the generations that went before it ; yet the rapidity 

 with which discoveries have been made, and inventions 

 founded upon them, since the art of printing diffused 

 knowledge among all ranks of the people, abundantly 



