The kindred sciences of geology and mineralogy have undergone the same improvements as that of chemistry. And by a course of inductive reasoning, founded on careful observation, the changes which the outer crust of our earth, to the small comparative extent that we are able to penetrate it, have been most satisfactorily shown, and referred to their several chemical or mechanical agents. It has also afforded data from which important facts in the history of organized beings have been deduced, and thus it has shed a light on a branch of knowledge from which it seemed most remote. The notion which once prevailed, that no species of animals is extinct, has been incontestibly disproved; and it has shown not only that there were many species which not only do not now exist, but which could not subsist in the present state of the world. Where important facts have not been discovered by human reason, we see its power exerted in profiting by those which accident has suggested; as in Galvani's discovery and that of Haüy in crystallography, of vaccination and many others.
Of all the branches of human knowledge there is no one which sooner exercised the understandings of men than that of medicine, first as a practical art, and then as a science, as there is none to which he is impelled by stronger motives; and accordingly we find it practised by a separate clan, in some of the rudest nations. Yet long and diligently as it has been cultivated, it has made prodigious advances of late years, and human reason has here too achieved its accustomed triumphs. In the surgical branch diseases are cured every day, often too by young and inexperienced operators, that were once deemed immedicable, and often proved fatal. The materia medica has been improved both by happy accidents, and the scientific labors of the chemist—and the science, trusting only to cautious observation and experiment, has profited as much by what it has rejected from the catalogue of sanative remedies, as what it has added. Reason has here taken the place of superstition and blind credulity, and few prescriptions are now made on purely empirical grounds. We have the most conclusive evidence of the advance of the medical science, in the greater average length of life now, compared with former periods. It has in England increased in 31 years from 1 in 33 to 1 in 58. A similar increase has been found to have taken place in every nation of Europe. In Great Britain, France and Germany, the average increase has been from 1 in 30 to 1 in 38 in less than two generations. And if a part of this melioration may be attributed to the moral improvement of men, to the greater wealth and comfort of a greater number, the diminution of intemperance and other vices, a part also seems fairly attributable to the medical science; but in either way it attests the progress of reason and philosophy.
The progress of those sciences which exercise no other faculty but the reason, also attest the increase and vigor of the human faculties. Algebra is not only more generally cultivated than in a former age, but it is now applied to every species of regular form and motion that matter can assume, and has thus reached conclusions which seemed unattainable by human skill; and the calculus which one generation readily performs, was scarcely intelligible to that which preceded it.
Even our most familiar and household concerns show the increased influence of reason over our actions. The dress of both sexes is more conformable to nature than formerly, and less biassed by caprice and arbitrary or accidental forms. I need only, by way of proof, refer to hair powder and buckles, and the tight ligatures which once bound our limbs or bodies, but bind them no longer. Forms have been discarded or abridged and made subservient to convenience—our modes of eating, drinking and sleeping—all the ordinary habits of social life prove the growing ascendancy of reason over habit and prejudice. Though in all of these we may occasionally see some retrograde steps.
The more philosophical spirit of modern, compared with ancient times, is illustrated by what was then considered as the seven wonders of the world. They boasted of magnitude or costliness—of some enormous expenditure of human labor in a pyramid, a statue or temple, which was fitted to make a strong impression on the senses. But what are the objects which now fill men's minds with admiration and astonishment? They are such as are addressed to their powers of reflection—great moral changes like the American or French revolutions; the liberation of Greece or of Spanish America; or if they be of a physical character, then they are of some successful effort of science and art which directly conduces to the benefit of mankind; such, for instance, as the application of steam to manufactures and navigation—the New York Canal, the Manchester Rail Road, and the Thames Tunnel. These, and such as these, are the world's wonders in our day.
Such then, Mr. President, is the character of the changes which the mind of man has wrought on physical nature, as well as in the improvement of his own condition; and these in turn have effected an immense change in the character of his mind. He has become less subjected to the dominion of his senses and more to that of his reason. He is necessarily made to perceive an infinite number of new and intricate relations, which the progress of knowledge and civilization are ever adding to those which previously existed, and his reasoning faculties have acquired strength in proportion to their exercise. From particular facts he is continually deducing general laws; and from those general laws, laws still more comprehensive. The consequence of which is, that the elaborate deductions of one age become the obvious truths of that which succeeds it, and each succeeding generation is more capable of intricate processes of reasoning than its predecessor.
In the same proportion too, as reason acquires strength, the dominion of the passions becomes weaker. They are less likely to be excited by unworthy causes, and less violent when excited. Reason obviously tends to prevent those mental perturbations which arise from false views of things, as from mistaken notions of right—from the exaggerations of future good or evil, and wrong estimates of their probability. Many objects which a more ignorant age has deemed important, the light of philosophy exhibits in their real insignificance. And in addition to all these direct causes, it seems not improbable that our minds being now so much more occupied in noticing causes and effects, and other important relations, will be less prone to strong emotions, except so far as they may have the sanction of reason. Let me not be understood to favor the dream of some speculatists, that philosophy will ever eradicate the passions. This result is neither possible nor desirable. It is in their proper indulgence that consists all that is called either happiness or virtue, and all that deserves to be so considered by a moral and intellectual being. They are
| "The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife Gives all the strength and color of our life." |
The passions have been aptly compared to the winds which impel the ship on the ocean of life,4 but reason performs higher functions than "the card." It sits at the helm, and guides the course of the bark when the gale is not too strong, and takes in sail when it is.
4 [On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale.]—Pope.