434 
MISCELLANEA. 
inactive, the power of appropriation and assimilation is re- 
duced, and man becomes a sensual creation merely. Bodily 
efforts, the exertion of muscular force, the development of 
mechanical power, calling upon the system for an active 
restoration of the employed material, leaves but little for the 
mind to work upon, and consequently intellectual power and 
great bodily exertion are not compatible. 
Nature performs all her works by a system of constants. 
The change of a constant quantity of matter is required to 
produce the development of a constant quantity of the spiri- 
tual energy. The development of an equivalent of mind 
requires the consumption of an equivalent of the material 
elements by which it is enchained. * * * * 
Civilisation consists in producing the highest amount of 
vitality, the largest quantity of producing power, and the 
most perfect development of mind. A people — the most 
industrious will necessarily be the most virtuous and intel- 
lectual. It may be said that our over-laboured population 
do not answer to those conditions. Unfortunately, it is too 
true they do not, and it is because they are over-laboured. 
A great law is broken, and a great curse follows. Every sin 
carries its own punishment. 
In a given time an overwrought population produces less 
than the same number of men and women who have laboured 
fairly ; the condition of the first is wreck of mind and of 
body, that of the second is the maintenance of health and 
capabilities for progress. Industry, therefore, is giving- 
mind and body an equal and a fair amount of labour, and 
civilisation depends upon the proper fulfilment of the con- 
ditions of human existence. 
Man was placed on this planet with powers to “ replenish 
the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of 
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living 
thing that moveth upon the earth.” In chemical constitution 
the vegetable and the animal tribes differ but little from 
man ; the vegetable has life , and is by its influence developed, 
the animal has life of a higher order, and under its exciting 
power pursues a more enlarged round of existence. Man, 
however, has more than this, and in the dignified possession 
of a soul, a world-embracing, a world-searching intelligence, 
he is enabled to exert his dominion over all things. 
A beast may possess a remarkable power of instinct; we 
see the bird construct a wonderful nest, and the beaver build 
a remarkable cell, but their powers over nature are limited. 
Neither the bird nor the beaver ever constructed a tool . 
Man, on the contrary, is enabled to avail himself, not merely 
