Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/266

254 connected with the lowest, and the human organization itself falls at last into inorganic dust, the form and culture of the land, the course of the rivers, vegetation, and population, along with different animal species, are in various ways changed by the activity of man. If therefore we compare the condition of countries which have once flourished and exhibited the activity of human industry, with the desert state which they now present, when, after the fall of these nations, they are deprived of the care and culture of man, we shall be convinced that, as a modern writer expresses himself on this subject, "Not only does man need the earth in order to live and be active, but the earth also stands in need of man."

We may hope now to have attained the object of the present essay, if, by throwing some new light upon certain aspects of infinite nature which have hitherto remained less observed, we have awakened a new attention to the indissoluble union as well as the beauty and regularity of the phænomena surrounding man and existing within him; and as the contemplation of these must necessarily stimulate us, not only to penetrate more deeply into the mysteries of science, but also to conform our own inward life to that harmony and purity which are presented by universal nature; for what would be the value of all scientific knowledge, did it not manifest itself in ennobling and elevating the human mind?

[In some of his reasonings the Author will, perhaps, be thought to deal with abstract terms as if they were real essences, or to employ them in a sense somewhat peculiar. Whatever difference of opinion may, however, exist with regard to the speculative parts of this memoir, it will, it is presumed, be acceptable and interesting to many readers, as showing the manner in which physiological subjects are viewed by some distinguished writers on the Continent.—]