and happy. Why should we think it un- 
worthy of the goodness of their benign 
Creator to have formed these things to 
give them pleasure and delight? In that 
state they could have wanted no medicines ! 
Since then, it is true, things have been 
lamentably changed, but plants and flowers 
remain, beautiful as at the first. The vices 
and intemperance of men have produced 
countless pains and diseases, to alleviate 
which many substances have been found of 
service, for whieh we should feel grateful. 
But to suppose that the hundred thousand, 
or more, species of plants in the world, 
should each have been destined only to 
occupy a niche in the voluminous and un- 
wieldy shop of some future apothecary, is 
surely beyond the widest range of possibi- 
lity itself! 1 
