170 



DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANIC LIFE 



[Ch. IX. 



man 



arrival of the first adventurers on the shores of the New 



World 



imagine 



man 



have gone on according to the order now observed in regions 



Even now, the waters of lakes, seas 

 , which teem with life, may be said to 

 elation to the human race — to be portions 



immediate 



m 



ever can take possession ; so that the greater part of the in- 



remain 



sensible to our presence as before any isle or continent was 

 appointed to be our residence. 



If the barren soil around Sydney had at once become fer- 

 tile upon the landing of our first settlers ; if, like the happy 

 isles whereof the poets have given us such glowing descrip- 

 tions, those sandy tracts had begun to yield spontaneously 

 an annual supply of grain, 



fancied alterations still more remarkable in the economy of 



we might then, indeed, have 



comm 



the planet. Or if, when a volcanic island like Ischia was, for 

 the first time, brought under cultivation by the enterprise 

 and industry of a Greek colony, the internal fire had become 

 dormant, and the earthquake had 



remitted 



some 



v r 



lating on the debilitation of the subterranean forces, when 

 the earth was first placed under the dominion of man. But 

 after a long interval of rest, the volcano bursts forth again 



half 



emi 



The course of na- 



ture remains evidently unchanged ; and, in like manner, we 

 may suppose the general condition of the globe, immediately 

 before and after the period when our species first began to 

 exist, to have been the same, with the exception only of man's 

 presence. 



The modifications in the system of which man is the in- 

 strument do not, perhaps, constitute so great a deviation from 

 previous analogy as we usually imagine ; we often, for ex- 

 ample, form an exaggerated estimate of the extent of our 

 power in extirpating some of the inferior animals, and causing 



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