262 OF THE HUMAN FACULTIES, 



considered as one,) instinctively avoid what does 

 not belong to their habits, or to which they have 

 not been accustomed by the force of education. 



The ocean, therefore, in all its terrific grandeur 

 and sublimity, would present to him, previously 

 to the developement of his mental faculties, and 

 to that experience which might arise out of the 

 exercise of them, nothing but an object of sur- 

 prise and terror; and the storms to which it was 

 subject, and too frequently their consequences, 

 would still add confirmation to his apprehensions. 



It would never have entered into his early con- 

 templation, that this great mass of water contained 

 within its boundaries, those vast supplies of food 

 that now add variety to his table; and those 

 saline particles, without the use of which no ani- 

 mal food can be relished. That by evaporation, 

 it produced those aqueous vapours, which, by 

 irrigating the soil, promote its fertility, without 

 which, his ordinary subsistence could not have 

 been obtained ; or that its surface would be tra- 

 versed by vessels of human construction, through 

 the medium of which, communications would be 

 opened with distant countries, from which the 

 most important results might be derived. But 

 he would only see in its aspect, a barrier to his 

 excursive movements, and a threat that even this 

 range of action (limited as it might be) would 

 be still further contracted and reduced. 



The noble rivers, which in their passage to the 



