A more intimate acquaintance with the people of this globe, and juster modes of reasoning, have dissipated these illusions; and if I mistake not, the laws of the mind will, in no distant day, be traced with an accuracy and precision little inferior to those which prevail in most branches of physics.
In the science of political economy too, we see the advance of the light of philosophy. The errors which were the result of general and deep-rooted prejudices, have yielded to the force of reason; and all enlightened men now agree that nothing is so injurious to national prosperity as too much regulation; and that the desire which mankind have to increase their means of enjoyment, operates more unceasingly, and sagaciously, and beneficially, than any schemes of the government, however vigilant, intelligent and free from bias; since governments at best can operate only by general rules, which injure some in benefiting others,—while the sagacity of individuals, with few exceptions, devises the best rules for each particular case.
It was for philosophy also to discover the connection between good government and the national prosperity, and that a community will have the most industry, skill and thrift, where property is best protected—where every one can freely exercise his talents or his capital, and securely enjoy the fruits they have yielded. Philosophy, or unprejudiced reason, if you prefer it, also refuted an error once prevalent, that one country, or one part of a country, was injured by another's welfare; and proved both by reasoning and example, that every accession of wealth or prosperity, experienced by one portion, radiates light and heat to all around it.
If the progress of philosophy, or human reason, has done so much in the moral sciences, it has done yet more in the physical branches of knowledge for the material world—more invites our attention and speculation—is more within the reach of experiment, and the benefits it confers are more direct and obvious. It would be foreign to my purpose, if I were competent to the task, to mark the steps by which man has passed from conjecture to certainly—from rash hypothesis to theories founded on cautious observation and experiment—from inquiries which, if successful, had only gratified curiosity, to discoveries and improvements immediately conducive to the benefits of society. To enable us to appreciate the advance of science, it is sufficient for us to look at what the condition of man now is, compared with what it was.
In whatever direction we turn our eyes, we behold some triumph of mind over matter. We cannot see a ship, a book, a gun, a watch—scarcely the commonest implement or utensil—without being made sensible of the wonders achieved by human science and art,—the result of the combined efforts of a thousand minds and ten thousand hands, embodied in a form that has added incalculably to man's power and enjoyment. If we take the departments of knowledge separately, we are filled with admiration at the labor by which it has climbed, and the elevation it has attained. Astronomy, not content with teaching us the motions of the planets and moons of our system, and by them, enabling us to traverse the pathless ocean with the certainty with which we travel by land—of itself a glorious achievement of science—now undertakes to estimate the weight and density of these bodies—their influence on one another—of the smallest on the largest—the flight of comets, and even some of the changes of position in the stars themselves. Optics has taught us new laws of light, and has subjected the most subtle and the most rapid body in nature to measurements, of as much certainty as the gross portions of matter. We now know the weight, density, motions, elasticity of the air we breathe, and which encompasses the earth; the laws of sound—its velocity, force, repercussion, musical tone. By electricity, magnetism, galvanism, are revealed to us new fluids of the existence of which we did not formerly dream. Their laws have been investigated with all the accuracy, acuteness and unwearied diligence which belongs to modern science; and though this branch of physics is every day receiving new accessions, it already forms a copious science of itself. While yet in the full career of discovery, it affords persuasive evidence of the close affinity if not identity of light, heat, magnetism, electricity and galvanism.
The progress of chemistry, shows us the growth of the human intellect in its numerous useful results. In the power it has acquired over brute matter, it has added infinitely to our means of comfort or enjoyment, by improving the useful arts of husbandry, metallurgy, dying, bleaching, tanning, brewing and medicine. Some of these improvements have, indeed, been the effect of accident; but many, nay the most of them, have been the result of human inquiry and sagacity. And the atomic theory, which gives us an insight into some of the primary laws of matter, is a pure deduction of reason.
By chemical discoveries, useful processes which once required months, or even years, are now effected in a few days. The chemist has found means to separate one of several properties from a drug, so that its medicinal effect may be undiminished and unaffected by other combined properties originally with it. Light, which formerly was furnished only by the valuable substances of wax, tallow, spermaceti or oil, has been supplied of a better quality, from the cheapest and most abundant objects in nature; and these improvements are but the precursors of the more splendid retinue which are hereafter destined to make their appearance. This science gives us assurance that all those substances which are most indispensable to man, because they repair the waste which is unceasingly going on in his bodily frame, are dispersed in boundless profusion throughout the universe, but under forms and combinations which conceal them from our unassisted senses; and that it may be within the scope of human art to separate those which are nutritious, and assimilate with our system, from those that are of a noxious or neutral character, and thus to modify the law which has hitherto limited the numbers of mankind. It is now thought whatever vegetable substances can be made soluble can be made digestible, in proof of which, a German chemist3 has already succeeded in converting ligneous substances into wholesome aliment; and it has long been known that sugar may be made by a similar chemical conversion. What would have been the transmutation for which the alchemist of former days consumed so many anxious days and sleepless nights, compared with these? Gold owes its extraordinary value to its scarcity, and had the adept succeeded in making it at pleasure, he would have lessened its value in the same proportion as he increased the quantity. If he could have converted copper into gold, the gold would have been worth no more than the copper, except for the expense of the transmutation. And if society had gained some advantage in being able to substitute it for metals that are liable to rust, yet it would have lost as much by the destruction of its property of containing great value in a small bulk, and its consequent unfitness to perform the functions of money.
3 Professor Autenrieth of Tubingen.
It is not improbable that some of these splendid visions of science may never be realized: but then other discoveries and improvements may take place of equal and greater importance; and should those hopes be verified, would they exhibit a greater triumph of art than has been witnessed in our day? they are certainly not more beyond the bounds of seeming probability than balloons, and diving bells, and rail roads, would have appeared to a former age.
The most extravagant fancy in which the man of science has indulged would scarcely exceed the wonders now wrought by steam, whether we consider the simplicity of the means, or the magnitude of the results. When in every vessel of heated water mankind had always seen a vapor arise, who could have supposed that in this simple fact, nature had furnished an agent, which by skilfully managing, he could multiply his natural strength a thousand fold, and move from place to place with the swiftness of a bird? By the alternate production and condensation of this vapor, which he is able to do by the very common agents of fire and water, he is able to extract the ponderous minerals from the bowels of the earth, having made it previously drain off the water which put them out of his reach. By the same power he fashions the metal he has made, into bars, or sheets, or rods, according to his various purposes. By it he performs all those operations which require incessant action as well as preterhuman strength; and thus it is made to spin and weave, to saw and bore and plane. By this he grinds his flour, cuts and polishes marble, prints newspapers, and transfers both himself and his commodities from place to place, by land or by water, with a rapidity which had existed only in the creations of an eastern imagination; and what is no less admirable, with a diminution of fatigue equal to the increase of speed.