16 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
mechanical and mercantile one. The useful things 
of external life, indeed, should not be undervalued ; 
they are the first things required, but they are not 
the sole or the highest things .necessary. Man 
must have food and clothing in order to live; but 
it must also be remembered that man does not 
live by bread and the conveniences of external life 
alone. When any one does live by these alone, he 
has forfeited his claim to the higher form of life 
which is his glorious privilege, and by which he is 
distinguished from: the lower animals. Nature 
throughout her whole wide domains gives no coun- 
tenance to such a materialistic exclusiveness. She 
is at once utilitarian and transcendental. Uses and 
beauties intermingle. All that is useful is around 
us; but how much more is there beside? There 
is a strange superfluous glory in the summer air; 
there is marvellous beauty in the forms and hues 
of flowers ; there is an enchanting sweetness in the 
song of birds and the murmur of waters; there 
is a divine grandeur and loveliness in the land- 
scapes of earth and the scenery of the heavens, the 
changes of the seasons, the dissolving splendours 
of morning, noon, sunset, and night, utterly in- 
comprehensible upon the theory of nature’s ex- 
clusive utilitarianism. All things proclaim that 
the Divine Architect, while amply providing for 
the physical wants of His creatures, has not for- 
