ON VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 93 



and desolation. Even man would become gross 

 and ferocious ; and his energies being no longer 

 called forth, or his intellectual powers exercised, 

 he would soon become more dangerous than the 

 beasts of the forest by which he is surrounded, 

 and the world would have been created in vain. 

 But it has been wisely and most benevolently 

 ordained to be otherwise. In the place of a rough 

 and unseemly covering which the earth would in 

 that case present to the eye, or that disturbance 

 of its several parts which would render it useless 

 to the purposes of creation, or inaccessible to 

 human approach; we uniformly find in all those 

 countries most fitted for the occupation of man, 

 vegetation abounding in all its beauty and use- 

 fulness giving life and character to the sur- 

 rounding scenery, and preserving in due form 

 and place the several parts in all their natural 

 shapes, proportions and distances affording 

 capabilities of production suitable to the consti- 

 tution and wants of those that are dependent 

 upon it for its supplies preserving in due purity 

 and equilibrium the varying states of the atmos- 

 phere, constantly deteriorated by animal respira- 

 tion, combustion, and mineral absorption and 

 above all, conferring on man, indubitably the first 

 object of the creation, those comprehensive re- 

 sources and excitements to action through the 

 operation of which his intellectual and moral 

 powers have been developed, and his social pro- 

 pensities have been directed to the most useful ends. 



