22 Clinton's introductory discourse. 



America, animated nature is weaker, less active, and more circumscribed 

 in the variety of its productions, than in the old world; that there is some 

 combination of elements and other physical causes, something that op- 

 poses its amplification; that there are obstacles to the development, and 

 perhaps to the formation, of large germs, and that even those which, from 

 the kindly influences of another climate, have acquired their complete 

 form and expansion, shrink and diminish under a niggardly air and an 

 unprolific land ! Dr. Robertson has also said, that " the principle of life 

 seems to have been less active and vigorous here than in the ancient con- 

 tinent;" and that "nature was not only less prolific in the new world, 

 but she appears likewise to have been less vigorous in her productions.'* 

 Need we add to this the obloquy which has been cast upon our country 

 by the herd of tourists and travellers who have attempted to describe it. 

 With some of them, our soil is destitute of prolific power, our atmosphere 

 teems with disease and death, our lives are comparatively short, our 

 institutions are tottering under debility and decay, our national character 

 is marked with all the traits of premature corruption and precocious tur- 

 pitude, our manners are barren of refinement, and our minds are desti- 

 tute of learning, and incapable of great intellectual exertion. When we 

 adventure into the fields of science, the master spirits who preside over 

 transatlantic literature view us with a sneer of supercilious contempt, or 

 with a smile of complaisant superiority, and consider our productions as 

 oases in the regions of Africa, deriving their merit less from intrinsic 

 beauty and excellence, than from their contrast with the surrounding de- 

 serts. And it has even been gravely proposed as a subject for inquiry, 

 whether the discovery of America has been advantageous or prejudicial 

 to mankind!* 



* See Note A. 



