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¬crease and multiply, and who, I am persuaded, throughout all creation, has ordained that no- thing should go backward or stand still. ¬" If there were no other proof of the pre- eminence of agriculture, let it be remembered that it is the greatest source of labour, and in a proportion little understood, because it not only comprehends the direct and immediate labour upon its surface and in its bowels, but the labour also of various arts and manufactures, whose raw materials it produces. — Labour, in- deed, is the salt of the earth, the preserver and nourisher of all things — the curse that man should eat his bread with the sweat of his brow, was mercifully repealed in the very moment it was pronounced, and was changed even into a bless- ing — Labour gave him bread, and a comfort along with it, which nothing like labour can bestow. If the earth produced spontaneously, it might be a paradise for angels, but no habitation for beings formed like ourselves; without labour, what could support or adorn the whole fabric ¬of ¬
