Note 33 — Chapter I

In the successive stages of social progress, the most destructive periods of human action upon nature are the pastoral condition, and that of incipient stationary civilization, or, in the newly discovered countries of modern geography, the colonial, which corresponds to the era of early civilization in older lands. In more advanced states of culture, conservative influences make themselves felt; and if highly civilized communities do not always restore the works of nature, they at least use a less wasteful expenditure than their predecessors in consuming them.