Genesis 1:28

II. THE COMMISSION TO MAN.

28. And God blessed them.

The nature of the blessing is explained in the rest of the verse. He made them fruitful, capable of reproducing rational beings like themselves, and gave the empire of the earth and its tenantry to them.

Replenish the earth, and subdue it.

It was the will of the Creator that man should not only occupy the earth, but bring it under his control. The savage does little or nothing to obey this command and the earth remains. natural wilderness. It is only when the earth is "subdued" that it furnishes an abundance of food for the race. The wild fruits are scanty and furnish only. precarious support, but it is when man has recovered the soil from the state of nature that it yields its harvest. The great food products, wheat, corn, etc., only exist in. state of cultivation, and without it would soon become extinct. The earth affords. productive soil and abundant materials, but these have to be made ready for use by human labor. The metals have to be reduced before they are useful, the forests leveled, the natural turf broken up, timber converted into houses and useful implements, and, indeed, man has everywhere to "subdue" before be gets the right of ownership or adapts to his use. Labor subdues and gives ownership. It is the power of subduing, or converting the products of nature to useful ends, which measures progress in civilization. Our own age has been remarkable for the advance made. The applications of steam and electricity to the service of man have revolutionized commerce and human industries. Nor are the collateral and remote less important than the direct and immediate results. He who takes. piece of timber from the common forest, and forms. useful implement, thereby makes it his own, and it cannot rightfully be taken from him, since no one can justly appropriate to himself the products of another's skill and labor. He who originally takes possession of an unappropriated field, and by his labor, prepares it for his own use, thereby makes it his own and it cannot be rightfully taken from him. Hence, arises the right of property, the origin and bond of civil society; and thus all the blessings of society, and of civilization and government, are due to the divinely implanted impulse, "fill the earth and subdue it. "-- Conant.