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And who shall declare it improbable that man shall yet control the pressure of the winds, bring rain from the clouds, and soothe the breast of the sea? Then pestilence and famine may become creatures of human wilfulness and neglect. Though there be calamities which no foresight nor prudence may intercept,—though the most cautious foot will slip, and the best judgment be at fault,—though our faculties be imperfect and our attention abstracted,—though the earth has pitfalls, and reptiles and wild beasts of sudden presence,—though a thousand things are straining which lack but the last hair to break them, and a thousand arts hang just within a wink of discovery,—yet while that whicii we do know is not regarded in our own behalf, it is with an ill grace that we complain of the tyranny of that which we know not—of evils which we cannot control—which, though controllable, were as readily neglected as those now under command.

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