ds which seems almost unlimited. To these novel
and still extending improvements may be added others, whish, though of a
secondary kind, yet materially affect the comforts of life, the
collecting from fossil materials the elements of combustion, and applying
them so as to illuminate, by a single operation, houses, streets, and
even cities. If you look to the results of chemical arts you will find
new substances of the most extraordinary nature applied to various novel
purposes; you will find a few experiments in electricity leading to the
marvellous result of disarming the thunder-cloud of its terrors, and you
will see new instruments created by human ingenuity, possessing the same
powers as the electrical organs of living animals. To whatever part of
the vision of modern times you cast your eyes you will find marks of
superiority and improvement, and I wish to impress upon you the
conviction that the results of intellectual labour or of scientific
genius are permanent and incapable of being lost. Monarchs change their
plans, governments their objects, a fleet or an army effect their purpose
and then pass away; but a piece of steel toached by the magnet preserves
its character for ever, and secures to man the dominion of the trackless
ocean. A new period of society may send armies from the shores of the
Baltic to those of the Euxine, and the empire of the followers of Mahomet
may be broken in pieces by a northern people, and the dominion of the
Britons in Asia may share the fate of that of Tamerlane or Zengiskhan;
but the steam-boat which ascends the Delaware or the St. Lawrence will be
continued to be used, and will carry the civilisation of an improved
people into the deserts of North America and into the wilds of Canada. In
the common history of the world, as compiled by authors in general,
almost all the great changes of nations are confounded with changes in
their dynasties, and events are usually referred either to sovereigns,
chiefs, heroes, or their armies, which do, in fact, originate from
entirely different causes, either of an intellectual or moral nature.
Governments depend far more than is generally supposed upon the opinion
of the people and the spirit of the age and nation. It sometimes happens
that a gigantic mind possesses supreme power and rises superior to the
age in which he is born, such was Alfred in England and Peter in Russia,
but such instances are very rare; and, in general, it is neither a