But his mental endowments enable him
to appropriate all which nature has supplied for the necessities of
life and the progress of his race. He sees and comprehends in nature
the designs of her Creator: these designs he develops, and the
consequence is a constant and enlightened progress of his race, and
the subjection of the physical world to this end.
He finds the soil, the climate, the production, and the labor united,
and he applies his intelligence to develop the design of this
combination; and the consequence has been the wonderful progress of
the last two centuries. I hold it as a great truth that nature points
to her uses and ends; that to observe these and follow them is to
promote the greatest happiness to the human family; and that wherever
these aims are diverted or misdirected, retrogression and human misery
are the consequence. In all matters, experience is a better test than
speculation; and to surrender a great practical utility to a mere
theory is great folly. But it has been done, and we abide the
consequences.
In all nations, a spurious, pretentious religion has been the
_avant-coureur_ of their destruction.
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