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The Subordination of Man to Nature

A while ago I stood beside a fifty-ton freight locomotive,
I wondered at the majestic beauty of its form, The polished
splendor of its corslet, its gilded wheels, its glowing fires & turbid
column of black smoke. The driver was there alert, involved
in overhauls, begrimed with soot and oil: but underneath
the soot and oil, methought I could [dicet?] a gleam of
satisfaction as he saw the crowd gathering about, and
gaping upon his glorious steed. So presently biding my time
I said to him, "A splendid instrument this." Instrument? said
he, "yes and you play it like a fiddle" and thereupon touching
a silent lever, let loose a whoop of sound that would have
split a drum head; and anon moving another, with thrust
of finger, brought up into tension a rattling furlong of cars
that wound around a curve beyond my sight.

Then thought I to myself this is a type of
Man in his relations to almighty Nature. " I am her Lord &
Master, she my slave, he boastingly exults. I touch her
and she moves, I touch her, she is still; she waits, she
runs, she toils for me; all she has, and is, and can acheive [sic],
is mine." Unconscious that for one compliance on the part
of Nature to his will, there must be a thousand on his part
to hers. This is the fact which I wish to illustrate, that
after all the modification, and controlling influence which
man can possibly exert upon Nature, Nature is still
the mightier of the two. Nature prescribes the mode of
living, the diet, the clothing, the dwellings, the employments,
the amusements, nay, to a large extent determins [sic] the
social, civil, political, and even the religious life of nations.

Perhaps the most elementary as well as important
fact in the merely physical life of man is his diet,