SECOND WEEK-FRIDAY.

PRACTICAL EFFECT OF THE COMMERCIAL SPIRIT PRODUCED BY A VARIETY OF CLIMATES.

It would be very interesting to trace the progress of a mercantile spirit, arising from the wants of one climate, and the superabundance of another; but this is a speculation which I cannot at present stop to pursue in its various bearings; and I must confine myself to a rapid view of the practical effects actually produced by it in European countries.

The desire to possess, when once thoroughly awakened, becomes insatiable; and this, again, gives a proportionate stimulus to the spirit of enterprise, which induces the traveller to urge his discoveries, and the trader to compass sea and land in the transport of produce from country to country; while the artificer, the manufacturer, and the agriculturist, each in his own department, exert their industry, skill, and ingenuity, in turning to account the knowledge and the materials which thus flow in upon them. It is because neither the climate nor the soil of any one country is naturally suited to the production of all the luxuries and conveniences which man covets, and because, even where these objects of desire might be produced by human industry, they are not naturally to be found, that the intercourse between distant countries takes place, on which so much of the civilization of the world depends. The ingenuity of man being thus stimulated, produces the most surprising changes, and promotes, in an astonishing degree, the means of human subsistence and enjoyment. It is not merely that the varied riches of other lands are imported, but that an essential alteration is effected in the actual produce of the soil.

It is a remarkable fact, noticed by Mr. Whewell, that

where man is an active cultivator, he scarcely ever bestows much of his care on those vegetables which the land would produce in a state of nature. He improves the soil, he even improves the climate, by his skilful labors, and he thus renders both fit for sustaining and nourishing more useful plants. He, therefore, does not generally select some of the natural productions, and improve them by careful culture, but, for the most part, he expels the native possessors of the land, and introduces colonies of strangers. This remark he proceeds to exemplify in the condition of his own country, England.

"Scarcely one of the plants," he says, "which occupy our fields and gardens, is indigenous to the country. The walnut and the peach come to us from Persia ; the apricot from Armenia. From Asia Minor and Syria, we have the cherry-tree, the fig, the pear, the pomegranate, the olive, the plum, and the mulberry. The vine which is now cultivated, is not a native of Europe; it is found wild on the shores of the Caspian, in Armenia, and Caramania. The most useful species of plants, the cereal vegetables, are certainly strangers, though their birthplace seems to be an impenetrable secret. Some have fancied that barley is found wild on the banks of the Semara, in Tartary; rye in Crete; wheat at Baschkiros, in Asia; but this is held by the best botanists to be very doubtful. The potato, which has been so widely dif fused over the world, in modern times, and has added so much to the resources of life in many countries, has been found equally difficult to trace back to its wild condition."'*

"In our

own country," Mr. Whewell goes on to observe," a higher state of the arts of life is marked by a more ready and extensive adoption of foreign productions. Our fields are covered with herbs from Holland,

* Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 71.—He observes in a note, that it appears now to be ascertained that the edible potato is found wild in the neighborhood of Valparaiso. [See a paper in the fifth volume of the Transactions of the London Horticultural Society, on the Native Country of the Wild Potato, by Joseph Sabine, Esq. This gentleman cultivated with success some specimens sent to him from the locality mentioned above.-Aм. ED.] 5

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and roots from Germany; with Flemish farming, and Swedish turnips; our hills with forests of the firs of Norway. The chestnut and the poplar of the south of Europe adorn our lawns, and below them flourish shrubs and flowers, from every clime, in profusion. In the meantime, Arabia improves our horses, China our pigs, North America our poultry, Spain our sheep, and almost every country sends its dog. The products which are ingredients in our luxuries, and which we cannot naturalize at home, we raise in our colonies; the cotton, coffee, and sugar of the East, are thus transplanted to the furthest West; and man lives in the middle of a rich and varied abundance, which depends on the facility with which plants, and animals, and modes of culture can be transferred into lands far removed from those in which

nature had placed them. And this plenty and variety of material comforts, is the companion and the mark of advantages and improvements in social life, of progress in art and science, of activity of thought, of energy of purpose, and of ascendency of character.

[Governor Everett, of Massachusetts, in one of his eloquent Addresses, thus applies a similar train of remark to the people of our United States-who, it may be observed, are supplied with the productions of various climates in a very considerable measure by their own coasting trade, and internal communications. As individuals," he says, "differ in their capacities, countries differ in soil and climate; and this difference leads to infinite variety of fabrics and productions, artificial and natural. Commerce perceives this diversity, and organizes a boundless system of exchanges, the object of which is to supply the greatest possible amount of want and desire, and to effect the widest possible diffusion of useful and convenient products. The extent to which this exchange of products is carried in highly-civilized countries, is truly wonderful. There are probably few individuals in this assembly who took their morning's meal this day, without the use of articles brought from almost every part of the world. The table on which it was served was made from a tree which grew on the Spanish main

or one of the West-India islands, and it was covered with a table-cloth from St. Petersburg or Archangel. The tea was from China; the coffee from Java; the. sugar from Cuba or Louisiana; the silver spoons from Mexico or Peru; the cups and saucers from England or France. Each of these articles was purchased by an exchange of other products-the growth of our own or foreign countries-collected and distributed by a succession of voyages, often to the furthest corners of the globe. Without cultivating a rood of ground, we taste the richest fruits of every soil. Without stirring from our fireside, we collect on our tables the growth of every region. In the midst of winter, we are served with fruits that ripened in a tropical sun; and struggling monsters are dragged from the depths of the Pacific ocean to lighten our dwellings."-AM. ED.]

This display of the effects of commercial and agricultural intercourse, which might easily be enlarged, depending, as that intercourse mainly does, on the influence, direct and indirect, of varieties of climate on the surface of the earth, serves to show a wise and beneficent intention in so unequal a distribution of température, and brings us back to the conclusion, that, whatever partial inconveniences may accompany such arrangement, these are vastly counterbalanced by the advantages of which it is productive. If it be true, as it undoubtedly is, that much of the activity, ingenuity, and intelligence, which exist in the world, had their first developement in the circumstances attending the differences in question; and if the very wants and privations of a less genial climate have eventually, not merely improved the intellectual character of men, but bound them together by new and intimate ties, from the equator to the vicinity of the poles, how can we avoid the inference, that such extensive and inportant results were contemplated and provided for by the Divine Mind, in establishing the relations between the natural and moral worlds?

["No man," again observes Governor Everett, "can promote his own interest without promoting that of others. As, in the system of the universe, every particle

of matter is attracted by every other particle, and it is not possible that a mote in a sunbeam should be displaced without producing an effect on the orbit of Saturn, so the minutest excess or defect in the supply of any one article of human want, produces an effect-though of course an insensible one-on the exchanges of all other articles. In this way, that Providence which educes the harmonious system of the heavens out of the adjusted motions and balanced masses of its shining orbs, with equal benevolence and care, furnishes to the countless millions of the human family, through an interminable succession of exchanges, the supply of their diversified and innumerable wants."—AM. ED.]

SECOND WEEK-SATURDAY.

ADAPTATION OF ORGANIZED EXISTENCES TO SEASONS AND

CLIMATES.

THE adaptation of plants and animals to the changes of the seasons, which, taken even in the broad and general view, is so clear an indication of an intelligent Designing Cause, is no where more conspicuous than in the season of winter. Were but a strong and continuous blast of the breath of winter to pass over our forests, fields, and gardens, in any of those months when vegetation is in its glory, and when animated nature luxuriates in universal plenty, the effect would be most disastrous. All organized existences would feel the fatal shock. Leaves, and fruits, and flowers, would shrink, wither, and decay; insects on the wing would fall lifeless to the earth; the various species of caterpillars would drop stiff and dying from the frozen vegetables on which they fed; even the larger animals would be stricken with the general blight; birds and beasts, if they did not instantly rish, would droop and shiver; and man himself, adapted