The Portsmouth inquirer. [volume] (Portsmouth, O. [Ohio]) 1849-1855, 1851-01-27
MISCELLANEOUS.


THEIR EARLY DEVELOPMENT.
In the arts of modern animals we find
those of their earliest representatives, and in
the handicrafts of living barbarians we may
contemplate those current in Eden and in
the colonies that sprung up around it; for
there is as marked resemblance in the pri-
NAL devices of man, as in those of the groups
below him, and necessarily SO, since orlgina-
ting in the same wants, the same instructive
impulses suggested and will ever suggest
them. While pressing emergencies gave rise
to primal devices, necessities led to their i'm
provement and multiplication. Whenever a
marked advance took place, it seems to have
arisen in much the same way as among infe-
rior beings. If we examine the habits and
actions OF these, we shall find the same di-
versity Of temper, talents, and their conse-
quences, prevailing as with us. The inge-
NOUS and industrious thrive; the idle and
inexpert suffer. Every creature, from the Ii
on to the lion-ant, the eagle to the epheme-
ron, is the author of its fortunes, good or
bad. Some, in advance of their fellows.
modify staple structures and stratagems 10
meet unusual emergencies, and are rewarded
for their pains. They are the inventors OF
their tribes. Novel circumstances suggest
new ideas, which become manifested in
new forms, materials, and practices. Pre-
cisely SO with the animal, Man: AS circun-
stances changed around him, so did his de-
vices; and hence useful results gradually &C.
cumulated, and the avenues to civilization
opened.
If necessities were the parents of inven.
ton, conveniences were its nurses and en-.
ljoyments its teachers. EAs society improved
so did these, and keeping in advance, they
courted and encouraged it on. Suggestin,
new ideas, they kept enlarging human pros
poets and eliciting new desires, which re
quired higher efforts to fulfil. In this way
the mostrefined of people have risen from
the rudest, and in this way people must al
ways rise. Every decided acquisition in thu
beginning leads to another, and it TO other,
and Others; so that the truth Is now becom
ing apparent, that accessions to science ant
art can only cease with human progress. ant
the converse-when it is arrested, they mus
decline, and as it retrogrades they will dis
appear, one by one, till the race revert t
primitive Ignorance and felicity.
WHAT IS YET TO BE DONE BY THEM.
The faculties of those who talk of limit!
to knowledge, and to the fruits of knowledge
are nascent. They have neither full MOI
half-grown ideas of msns powers, and thu
miracles in agriculture, chemistry, and me
cllanics, he has to perform. Would they
judge Of the future by the past, or determine
what is to be, by what is? Do they thinl
the earth is to remain as now--the greate
part arid moors, dark forests, and morass p
A larger much larger-proportion of thei
own species, too, as destitute Of mental ant
moral cultivationl Why, man is only enter
ing on his task-by few preliminary anG
scattered experiments preparing himself tc
set about it.
An infnity of work is before him. AS
an agiculturist, he has to lay and keep en-
larging the basis Of the socialoolumn. All
but an insignificant portion Of his splendid
patrimony is yet wild land--this he has to
reclaim and convert into orchards and gar
dens, into grass and grain-growing felds.--
The richest sections, the trolis, SO exube-
rant in fertility, are to be subjugated--har
touched by the plough, though deemed The
birth place and special homestead Of the
species. Free and facile communication
with and through all have to be established
Add to this the publication of the atmos-
phere from malaira---for, by human provi
dence, salubrity is TO succeed the baneful mi
asma of marshes--the h0t-beds of fevers ant
agues are TO be dried up, and humanlife ant
life's happiness prolonged. algis
The nature and properties Of myriads o
unknown plants have to be ascertained--the
value fostered, improved and multiplied; thu
noxious and useless suppressed, So of;ani
mals--for 10 us is committed the power O
moulding and multiplying such as are ser
viccahle, and OF ennihilating Others, by re-
knowing the conditions under or BY whicl
4 they alone can exist. BY iheexetuise ofthil
Iprefogatiyey results have been brpughtahpu
assineulera any IN vegetable and prtiacIal