Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1866-10-05
Useful improvements not Opposed
TO the Harmony Of Nature.

This so-called romantic but morbid taste
which assumes to itself peculiar refine
ment, manifested by sneers at the utlitarian,
and talks of dcsecration when mans ingcn-
uity and needs compel the forces of nature
to pay him tribute, is unworthy the thought
full and judicious mind.
The roaring waterfall. the flowing river,
the restless sea, only half subserve the pur-
poses of their creation, when they appeal
alone to the eye and exact our admiration
or wonder. The useful is intended TO be
mingled with the beautiful. The two are in
absolute and perfect harmony. Whatever
in nature appeals to our sense of beauty is
useful, at least indirectly, in educating the
mind and refining the tastes
Nature unadorned is not its highest type
of beauty. The rocky and barren mount
ain may excite our wonder. the apparently
unbounded plain and the impenetrable for
est may arouse our surprise and anxiety
but none Of them are, pleasingly beautiful.
We look upon them perhaps as necessry ad-
juncts to the great plan Of nature, but not
as contributing directly to human uses.
He who has sailed for days and nights over
the ocean without meeting a SAIL knows the
sense of desoation which comes over him as
he is forced to believe he is alone. Contrasts
hightcn our enjoyment. a scene of Wild
ness appeals more powerfully to the senses
when it is relieved by the sight Of Il monu-
mcnt of mans ingenuity in Il magnificent
bridge or ccntipedal aqueduct. An addition
to our enjoyment is afforded when we know
that these works assist in the progress of
the race. All well-baanced minds look up
on every step of progress in mechanical i'm
provcment as Il means of adding to human
happiness, and therefore do not feel Il regret
because the original wildncss of nature is
intruded upon by the works of mans ingen-
uity. Man is the improver of visible nature
as well as of the latent forces of natural
laws. Nature exists for man. 1t Is for him
to study her laws and find the means of cX.
ecuting them. She is the Sphinx whose
riddles the inventor will unravel His inn
provements are in no wise the antagonists
Of beauty and the harmony of natures laws
unintcriered with by the daring attempts OF
her latest child. The employment of wa
terfall for driving machinery, although il
may detract from the original beauty of the
| fall, does not necessarily disturb the harmo-
ny of nature. Utility is not opposed to
| beauty. Without the mechanical ingenuity
of mau, the face of nature would be in d
measure waste; for where there is no ben
fit to man, the purposes of the creator is
but half fulfilled.
| We prefer to see the raging torrent
bridged, the obdurate and impossible
mountain tunnelled, the valley cultivated
the stream utilized by being compelled tc
contribute to mans wants, by dams and ma
chinery, and the forest made to yield before
his improving footsteps, rather than to view
them in all their native wildness and savage.
ry. Man, and not the unaided forces of ma.
ture, is the ciyilizer. The aborgines of this
continent held it from time immemorial, but
existing as savages, they never improved
upon the generation that preceded them
TO day after only two hundred years occu.
pancy, the improving race has multiplied tc
forty millions, living pleasantly and com.
fortably, on the soil which gave a meagrC
and miserable support to less than five mil
lions of naked savages, gorged in times o
plenty, and who starved and died by thous
ands in times of scarcity.
He who travels five hundred miles ovel
our railroads, spanning half Il continent
and at each mile in his progress sees pros
porous villages where but few years ago
was an uninhabited wilderness, who visits
prosperous towns or populous cities where