I PROLEGOMENA. 9 



magma predestined to evolve into a new world, 

 has been the no less predestined end of a van- 

 ished predecessor. 



II. 



Three or four years have elapsed since the state 

 of nature, to which I have referred, was brought 

 to an end, so far as a small patch of the soil is 

 concerned, by the intervention of man. The 

 patch was cut off from the rest by a wall; within 

 the area thus protected, the native vegetation was, 

 as far as possible, extirpated; while a colony of 

 strange plants was imported and set down in its 

 place. In short, it was made into a garden. At 

 the present time, this artificially treated area 

 presents an aspect extraordinarily different from 

 that of so much of the land as remains in the 

 state of nature, outside the wall. Trees, shrubs, 

 and herbs, many of them appertaining to the 

 state of nature of remote parts of the globe, 

 abound and flourish. Moreover, considerable 

 quantities of vegetables, fruits, and flowers are 

 produced, of kinds which neither now exist, nor 

 have ever existed, except under conditions such as 

 obtain in the garden; and which, therefore, are as 

 much works of the art of man as the frames and 

 glass-houses in which some of them are raised. 

 That the " state of Art," thus created in the 

 state of nature by man, is sustained by 

 and dependent on him, would at once become 



