Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/71

Rh in the new world, ‘La nature vivante eſt beaucoup moins agiſſante, beaucoup moins forte:’ that nature is leſs active, leſs energetic on one ſide of the globe than ſhe is on the other. As if both ſides were not warmed by the ſame genial ſun; as if a ſoil of the ſame chemical compoſition, was leſs capable of elaboration into animal nutriment; as if the fruits and grains from that ſoil and ſun, yielded leſs rich chyle, gave a leſs extenſion to the ſolids and fluids of the body, or produced ſooner in the cartilages, membranes, and fibres, that rigidity which reſtrains all further extenſion, and terminates animal growth. The truth is, that a pigmy and a Patagonian, a mouſe and a mammoth, derive their dimenſions from the ſame nutritive juices. The difference of increment depends on circumſtances unſearchable to beings with our capacities. Every race of animals ſeems to have received from their Maker certain laws of extenſion at the time of their formation. Their elaborative organs were formed to produce this while proper obſtacles were oppoſed to its further progreſs. Below theſe limits they cannot fall, nor riſe above them. What intermediate ſtation they ſhall take may depend on ſoil, on climate, on food, on a careful choice of breeders. But all the manna of heaven would never raiſe the mouſe to the bulk of the mammoth.

The opinion advanced by the Count de Buffon, Is, 1. That the animals common to both the old and new world, are ſmaller in the latter. 2. That thoſe peculiar to the new are on a ſmaller ſcale. 3. That thoſe which have been domeſticated in