Transactions of the Illinois State Horticultural Society, for 1870, Vol. 4

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Excerpt from Transactions of the Illinois State Horticultural Society, for 1870, Vol. 4: Being the Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting, Held at Galesburg, December, 13, 14, 15, and 16, With Other Reports and Papers Upon Horticultural Topics, Proceedings of Local Societies, EtcThere have been received certain sayings, as though they embodied unquestionable historical truths, for instance, that the children of Adam followed the Sun, and that Westward the Star of Empire takes its way. Some have gone so far as to suppose that innate instinct deter mined this assumed course in man. Like many other dogmas, accepted as true without investigation, these sayings will not stand the ordeal of close scrutiny. The migrations of the Toltecs and Aztecs, on our own continent, have been from north to south, while those of the Egyptians have been the reverse, from south to north. It is only true of the Asiatics and Europeans that they migrate from east to west. Philo sophically, therefore, no innate law of humanity is even supposable as presiding over, and directing these migrations.The direction of human migrations is not determined by an inherent law, for, if it were, it would be as irreversible as solar and planetary motion. It receives its entire impulse from a necessity imposed by man's own agency. The edge of a forest being set on fire, the consuming element travels necessarily in the direction not yet wasted by it. So it is with man. He is a waster of forests, and hence in his migrations he follows the receding forests, whether they lie north, east, south, or west.While man remained a savage, and lived by the chase, forests not only supplied his simple wants, but also afforded him shelter alike against the scorching heats of summer and chilling blasts of winter.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.