Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 1 (1791).djvu/26

2 their necessary wants, and even to obtain conveniences and luxuries. In the more hospitable climes in which probably mankind were first established, this talk was the more easy. The calls of nature would there be readily satisfied; and while the senses were gratified with all they were capable of enjoying, the mind, ever prone to curiosity, would be continually exercised and delighted in investigating the creation around it. Then, as the human race multiplied, would the spirit of competition arise for the discovery of hitherto untasted luxuries or unknown conveniences; and he who first climbed the lofty palm-tree, and while its leafy honours were waving above his head, scattered the golden shower of plenty upon his admiring companions, would deserve and enjoy more real glory, than any destroyer of his fellow creatures ever enjoyed, after those very boughs became prostituted to proclaim the triumph of desolation and war. By degrees mankind became so numerous and so adventurous as not only to occupy all that part of the world in which they were first settled, but also to migrate into far distant countries, where ruder skies and less fruitful plains taught them new wants, and put their ingenuity to greater trials. In short, by means and accidents which most likely will long remain a problem for philosophers, the human race became in process of time dispersed over almost every part of the globe where art and labour could find them protection and subsistence. Their various acquirements, in the course of their long, laborious progress, must have been all founded on the knowledge and observation of nature; and with so much accuracy have they studied this subject, so interesting to them all, that even in the most advanced state of society, as well as in the lowest, mankind are perfectly agreed upon the uses of most of the necessaries with which nature furnishes them; they have all alike learned precisely to what purpose each is fit, and all supply Rh