278 HISTORY OF 



nature, man is the least affected by the soil where he reside *=. 

 and least influenced by the variations of vegetable sustenance : 

 etiually unaffected by the luxuriance of the warm climates, or 

 the sterility of the poles, he has spread his habitations over the 

 whole earth -, and finds subsistence as well amidst the ice of the 

 north as the burning deserts under the Line. All creatures of 

 an inferior nature, as has been said, have peculiar propensities 

 to peculiar climates ; they are circumscribed to zones, and con- 

 fined to territories, where their proper food is found in the 

 greatest abundance ; but man may be called the animal of every 

 climate, and suffers but very gradual alterations from the nature 

 of any situation. 



As to animals of a meaner rank, whom man compels to attend 

 him in his migrations, these being obliged to live in a kind ot 

 constraint, and upon vegetable food often different from that of 

 iheir native soil, they veiy soon alter their natures with the na- 

 ture of their nourishment, assimilate to the vegetables upon 

 which they are fed, and thus assume very different habits as well 

 as appearances. Thus man, unaffected himself, alters and di- 

 rects the nature of other animals at his pleasure ; increases their 

 strength for his delight, or their patience for his necessities. 



This power of altering the appearances of things, seems to 

 have been given him for very wise purposes. The Deity, when 

 he made the earth, was willing to give his favoured creature 

 many opponents, that might at once exercise his virtues, and call 

 forth his latent abilities. Hence we find, in those wide unculti- 

 vated wildernesses, where man, in his savage state, owns inferior 

 strength, and the beasts claim divided dominion, that the whole 

 forest swarms with noxious animals and vegetables ; animals as 

 yet undescribed, and vegetables which want a name. In those 

 recesses, nature seems rather lavish than magnificent in bestow- 

 ing life. The trees are usually of the largest kinds, covered 

 round with parasite plants, and interwoven at the tops with each 

 other. The boughs, both above and below, are peopled with 

 various generations ; some of which have never been upon the 

 ground, and others have never stirred from the branches on 

 which they were produced. In this manner millions of minute 

 and loathsome creatures pursue a round of uninterrupted exis- 

 tence, and enjoy a life scarcely superior to vegetation. At ths 

 same time, the vegetables in those places are of the larger kinds, 



