Robert Mudie
Published: 2017-11-21
Total Pages: 404
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Excerpt from The British Naturalist, or Sketches of the More Interesting Productions of Britain and the Surrounding Sea, in the Scenes Which They Inhabit, Vol. 1: And With Relation to the General Economy of Nature, and the Wisdom and Power of Its Author Over the whole of this extensive, fair, and varied creation, dominion was, by its Almighty and All-bonus tiful Creator, given to man. When our first parents were formed, and ere yet Eden had been prepared for theirabode, God blessed them, and said, '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. And behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree upon which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed.' Thus the commandment is ample, and it is circumstantial. There is the dominion to man, as a rational and an intelligent creature - the study and knowledge, as an exercise and improvement of the mind; and the use, for the support and comfort of the body, as the proper consequence and reward of the study and knowledge. It is this knowledge of the productions of nature, their habits, and the laws of their being, which, in the emphatic language of Lord Bacon, Is power; and, abundant as are the works, possessions, and comforts, of civilized man - extensive as is his learning, numer ous as are his arts and his sciences, and disposed as he too often is to neglect nature for art, or even for indo lence, the study of the nature and properties of those Objects and substances around him, in the production of which he had originally no concern, is the source and fountain of them.all. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.