414 
ESTIM vTE OF THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF MAN. 
and to examine how far the state of external 
nature is adapted to that condition ; whe- 
ther we regard the provisions made for the 
supply of man's wants either natural or ac- 
quired; or those which are made for the 
exercise of his intellectual faculties. The 
following treatise naturally, therefore, divides 
itself into two parts ; in the first of which it 
is intended to investigate and describe the 
physical condition of man ; in the second, 
the adaptation of external nature to that 
condition. 
But a wide field here opens to our view : 
for man cannot, under any circumstances, be 
considered as an insulated being ; or un- 
connected vt'ith the rest of animated nature. 
He is indeed but one link in the great chain 
of animal creation ; and not only does the 
contemplation of his condition lose half its 
interest, if separated from the contempla- 
tion of the condition of other animals ; but 
it cannot be satisfactorily investigated with- 
out that aid. And, again, animal life itself 
is but one among many modes of existence, 
by which the Creator has manifested his 
omnipotence, and which it is necessary to 
contemplate in connexion with the general 
phenomena of nature, in order to show the 
superiority of that province, at the head of 
which human beings have been placed. 
In attempting, however, to form a just 
estimate of the physical condition of man, 
we must not regard him merely under the 
aspect of savage or uncivilized life, and con- 
sider this as his natural state : for it may be 
presumed that, at the present day, such a 
puerile view of the question is not for a 
moment entertained by any one capable of 
philosophical reflection. In fact, in as many 
different states as man does actually exist, 
civilized or savage, so many are his natural 
states. If any indeed could be pre-emi- 
nently called his natural state, it would be 
that of civilization : for not only does ex- 
perience show that his natural tendency is 
towards such a state ; but we know, from 
the highest authority, that the existence of 
man is connected with a moral end \ (with 
more indeed than a moral end ; since 
morals have immediately a relation to this 
life only, while man is destined for a fu- 
ture ;) and a moral end is hardly attainable 
in an uncivilized state of society. 
THE GENERAL CONSTITUTION OF 
external nature. 
The more familiar objects of that external 
world by which man is surrounded are usu- 
ally distributed into three kingdoms,as they 
are called; the animal, vegetable, dinA mineral: 
but for the purpose of this treatise it will be 
necessary to take into our account the phe- 
nomena of the atmosphere also. 
The atmosphere principally consists of 
the air which we respire : (a form of mat- 
ter so subtle, in all its states, as to be invi- 
sible ; ) together with a variable proportion 
of water, of which a part is always retained 
in close combination with the air ; and, like 
the air itself, exists always in an invisible 
state. There are also diffused through the 
atmosphere those still more subtle agents, 
heat and electricity. But all these, though 
of so subtle a substance, are in their occa- 
sional effects the most powerful agents of 
nature. For, omitting the consideration of 
their silent but wonderful operation, as ex- 
hibited in the process of vegetation, and in 
many other processes less open to observa- 
tion, let us consider the occasional effects of 
air in the violence of a tornado ; or of 
water, in the inundation of a rapid river : 
or let us contemplate the effect of either an 
indefinite diminution or increase of heat ; 
on the one hand, the natural process of 
animal decomposition arrested by its abstrac- 
tion, so that the imbedded mammoth re- 
mains at this moment in the same state that 
it was four thousand years ago ; and in 
which, under the same circumstances, it 
undoubtedly would be, four thousand or 
four millions years hence ; on the other 
hand, the possibility of the dissipation of 
all the constituent parts of matter, or their 
fixation in the state of glass, resulting from 
the agency of indefinitely increased heat : 
or, lastly, let us consider the tremendous 
effects of condensed electricity in the form 
of lightning: — and we shall necessarily ac- 
knowledge that though in their usual state 
the constituents of the atmosphere are 
among the most tranquil agents of nature, 
yet, when their power is concentrated, they 
are the most awfully energetic. 
In the mineral kingdom the most cha- 
racteristic property of the several species 
appears to be a disposition to a peculiar 
mode of mutual attraction among the parti- 
cles composing the individuals belonging to 
them ; from which attraction, when exerted 
under the most favourable circumstances, 
result that symmetry and regularity of form, 
to which the term crystal has been applied. 
The transparency and degree of hardness 
of crystals are various, and depend much 
upon external circumstances. The form is 
fundamentally the same for each species, 
though capable of being modified according 
to known laws ;• and the substance is che- 
mically the same throughout its whole ex- 
tent. Every atom of a crystallized mass 
of gypsum consists of water, lime, and sul- 
phuric acid, united in the same proportions 
as are found to exist in the whole mass, or in 
any given part of it. 
The individuals of the vegetable kingdom 
differ very remarkably from those of the 
