Man, in the early stages of his existence, is drawn by an instinctive power to observe and admire nature. The love of it, too, glows in the breast of every child. We have never, indeed, witnessed the actions of men in the infancy of society, and therefore cannot estimate the influence exercised upon them by external objects; for the savages whom the European, wandering over the globe in quest of gold or knowledge, finds in the deserts or in the remote isles of the ocean, are evidently degraded beings who have degenerated from a nobler stock. But the history and traditions of most of the tribes with which we are acquainted, and especially of those inhabiting the American continent, show that at some remote period they must have possessed more knowledge than they exhibited at our first acquaintance with them. Revelation, too, assures us that man was made perfect; and philosophy has not succeeded in forming a theory to account for the physical or moral diversities exhibited by our race, approaching in consistency to that which may be drawn from the pages of the Sacred Writings. "Man," says Cuvier, "who was cast feeble and naked on the surface of the globe, seemed created for inevitable destruction. Evils assailed him on all sides; the remedies remained concealed from him, but he had been endowed with genius for discovering them. The first savages gathered in the woods some nutritious fruits, some wholesome roots, and thus satisfied their more urgent wants. The first shepherds perceived that the stars follow a regular course, and were directed by them in their journeys over the plains of the desert. Such was the origin of the mathematical and physical sciences. "When the genius of man had discovered that it could combat Nature by her own means, it no longer rested; it watched her incessantly, and continually wrested from her new conquests, each marked by some improvement in his condition. Then succeeded, without interruption, meditating minds, which, being the faithful depositaries of acquired knowledge, and continually occupied with connecting and giving a vivifying unity to its parts, have led us, in less than four thousand years, from the first attempts of those pastoral observers to the profound calculations of Newton and Laplace, and to the learned classifications of Linnaeus and Jussieu. This precious inheritance, always augmenting, borne from Chaldea to Egypt, from Egypt to Greece, hidden during periods of misfortune and darkness, recovered in a happier age, unequally dispersed among the nations of Europe, has been every where followed by riches and power; the nations which have welcomed it have become the mistresses of the world, while those which have neglected it have fallen into feebleness and obscurity."