Consolations in travel, or the last days of a philosopher / By Sir Humphry Davy.

  • Humphry Davy
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Consolations in travel, or the last days of a philosopher / By Sir Humphry Davy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    54/290 (page 36)
    3G of barbarians for some gross view of plunder or ambition, is an instrument of divine power to effect a purpose of which he is wholly uncon- scious :—he is carrying a strong race to im- prove a weak one, and giving energy to a debi- litated population ; and the deserts he makes in his passage will become in another age culti- vated fields, and the solitude he produces will be succeeded by a powerful and healthy po- pulation. The results of these events in the moral and political world may be compared to those produced in the vegetable kingdom by the storms and heavy gales so usual at the vernal equi- nox, the time of the formation of the seed ; the pollen or farina of one flower is thrown upon the pistil of another, and the crossing of varie- ties of plants so essential to the perfection of the vegetable world produced. In man, moral causes and physical ones modify each other; the transmission of hereditary qualities to off- spring is distinct in the animal world, and in the case of disposition to disease it is suffi- ciently obvious in the human being. But it is likewise a general principle, that powers or habits ac(]uired by cultivation are transmitted to the next generation and exalted or perpetuated;