s 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



722 



and to some extent applicable to the winter 

 storage of every variety of root crop, as well 

 as apples or other fruit. 



Decay begins at the bottom of the mass, where 

 weight and moisture are greatest. J. L. D. 



We regret that Col. D.'s letter was received 

 too late for insertion in our November number; 

 but thinking it probable that other engage- 

 ments had caused him to forget to furnish us 

 with an account of his plan, we wrote a short 

 and imperfect sketch of it for that number, 

 which we will now retract, and give our readers 

 the Col.'s own directions instead of our hasty 

 note. 



This method of storing, sweet potatoes has 

 been thoroughly tested, and is no mere item of 

 "book farming" — but may be relied on. — 

 Editor. 



The Wonderful Nature of the Human 

 Mind, Exhibited in the Power of Mind 

 over Matter. 



No stress will here be laid upon the mysteri- 

 ous connection between the mind and the body, 

 by which the former eontrouls the voluntary 

 movements of the latter, because this, wonder 

 ful as it is, does nut distinguish man from 

 the brutes, 1 refer to that power, by which 

 man subjects the whole material world, ani- 

 mate and inanimate, organized and unorgan- 

 ized, to his personal use and convenience. 

 There is not a substance in all the earth's con- 

 stituents or productions, which lie does not 

 somehow employ for himself; not an animal 

 or an insect which he does not convert in 

 some way into a minister to his real or im- 

 aginary good ; not a principle or law of Nature, 

 which he does not make subservient to some 

 personal purpose, as soon as it is discovered. 



What are the varied and nameless comforts 

 that belong to civilized society, as distinguished 

 from savage, but so many different instances 

 of the mind of man, turning the powers and 

 susceptibilities of matter to accommodate his 

 own wishes? Some of these powers are of 

 terrific energy. But, the mind of man fear- 

 lessly puts them in bonds to do him service; 

 and with an obedience, as amazing for its sub- 

 missiveness as for its efficiency, they act at his 

 bidding. Fire and wind, the mighty ocean, 

 steam and the lightning itself, wait, as it were, 

 upon the will of man. The astonishing facili- 

 ties for intercourse between distant place.- 

 which now exist, and are daily becoming more 

 numerous, and the extreme ease and the pro- 

 digious rapidity with which all the utensils and 

 fabrics and multitudinous articles of utility, 

 pleasure and luxury are now furnished to the 

 world, are merely the results of the power ol 

 mind over matter. It is by this controul over 

 the most wonderful energies and capabilities 



' of Nature, that man is rendered emphatically, 

 " lord of this lower creation." 

 Thus— 



* * "Man is one world, and hath 

 Another to attend him,'" 



And here, one cannot help thinking of the 

 folly and atheism of that philosophy of ancient 

 times, which represented matter as the fatal 

 enemy of man; which loved to discourse of 

 body and spirit as antagonist principles. If 

 they have indeed been foes from eternity as 

 such phylosophy imagined, it is now obvious 

 enough, that the spirit has gained the mastery, 

 and is likely to hold it, and the more the gross 

 things of sense shall resist the supremacy, the 

 more strengh for command will the mind 

 gather from the very resistance; since all the 

 resistance that matter can make is, by disclos- 

 ing its own properties and laws, and every new 

 property or law thus disclosed, is instantly con- 

 verted by the mind into a new servant and 

 minister to itself. But it is a more ennobling 

 view as it is the only rational view, which 

 christian philosophy — the only true philosophy 

 —now gives us of the case. This points out to us 

 a most striking manifestation of the power, wis- 

 dom and goodness of God the Creator, in so ac- 

 commodating to each other the nature of mind 

 and the nature of matter. Theadaptation is truly 

 wonderful, and shows demonstratively, that 

 "God, in constructing the vast mechanism of 

 Nature, overlooked not the humblest of its 

 parts, but incorporated the good of our species 

 with the wider generalities and laws of a uni- 

 versal system." The properties and laws of 

 matter are all fitted to subserve the purposes of 

 the intelligent mind. Every new triumph over 

 external Nature, every new instance of a 

 mastery acquired by man over the elements 

 which surround him, is*a new development of 

 this interesting truth; showing more fully how 

 mind and matter have been adapted to each 

 other; " the first endowed by the Creator with 

 those powers which qualify it to command; the 

 second no less evidently endowed with those 

 corresponding susceptibilities which cause it 

 to obey." 



Now here is the argument: the material 

 world is indeed wonderfully made, and appears 

 especially so in its adapted subserviency to 

 mind; but the mind appears thereby still more 

 wonderfully made, as it is by its own nature 

 fitted for such command. 



And we must not overlook a peculiar con- 

 sideration, that gives great force to the argu- 

 ment, viz: the fact, that the material world is 

 thus made to ontribute to the interests of 

 man, only by his applying to matter the results 

 of long processes of abstruse calculation, the 

 principles of the most abstract sciences, the 

 pure inventions of the mind itself. As for ex- 

 ample, the position of the north star, the incli- 

 nation of the earth's axis, and the polarity of 

 the magnetic needle, are material facts seiz&J 



