254 DR. CARUS ON THE KINGDOMS OF NATURE, ETC. 
connected with the lowest, and the human organization itself falls at last 
into inorganic dust, the form and culture of the land, the course of the 
rivers, vegetation, and population, along with different animal species, 
are in various ways changed by the activity of man. If therefore we 
compare the condition of countries which have once flourished and 
exhibited the activity of human industry, with the desert state which 
they now present, when, after the fall of these nations, they are deprived 
of the care and culture of man, we shall be convinced that, as a mo- 
dern writer* expresses himself on this subject, “ Not only does man 
need the earth in order to live and be active, but the earth also stands 
in need of man.” 
We may hope now to have attained the object of the present essay, 
if, by throwing some new light upon certain aspects of infinite nature 
which have hitherto remained less observed, we have awakened a new 
attention to the indissoluble union as well as the beauty and regularity 
of the phenomena surrounding man and existing within him; and as 
the contemplation of these must necessarily stimulate us, not only to 
penetrate more deeply into the mysteries of science, but also to conform 
our own inward life to that harmony and purity which are presented 
by universal nature; for what would be the value of all scientific 
knowledge, did it not manifest itself in ennobling and elevating the 
human mind ? 
* T. F. Koreff, De Regionibus Italie aere pernicioso contaminatis Observa- 
éiones. Berol. 1817. 4. 
NOTE. 
[In some of his reasonings the Author will, perhaps, be thought to 
deal with abstract terms as if they were real essences, or to employ them 
in a sense somewhat peculiar. Whatever difference of opinion may, 
however, exist with regard to the speculative parts of this memoir, it 
will, it is presumed, be acceptable and interesting to many readers, as 
showing the manner in which physiological subjects are viewed by 
some distinguished writers on the Continent.—Ebir. ] 
