THE APOTHEOSIS OF STEAM. 437 



chargeable in a great degree to our superior knowledge. We have 

 discovered that their premises were false, and of course we care 

 nothing for their conclusions. I assert that poetry, painting, sculp- 

 ture, and architecture, never within an equal period produced so 

 many great works as since 1770, but I have not here the space to 

 argue that point. 



I think the proof is sufficient that there has been an immense 

 change in human life for the better since the middle of the last cen- 

 tury a change great enough to require the recognition of a new era 

 in culture. The preponderant influence and characteristic of our 

 time suggest that it should be called " The Age of Steam ; " and this, 

 like the universally-accepted stone, bronze, and iron ages, suggests 

 that industry is the most important feature of culture. No other name 

 has been offered, no other force can compete with it. The improve- 

 ments in printing and in the manufacture of iron and cloth, great as 

 they are, are yet dependent for much of their value on the steam which 

 drives the press, the rolling-mill, and the loom, and transports their 

 products to market. The electric telegraph is inferior to either of 

 these three : Watt's invention remains master of the field. It has 

 made a new era, which ranks with that of bronze, and the two sur- 

 pass in importance all the others. 



When savages learned to make bronze, their former weapons and 

 tools of stone and bone w T ere thrown away. The flint knife, which lost 

 its brittle edge at the first cut into wood, was replaced by tongh 

 metal which could be sharpened anew every day, and would last for 

 years. The clumsy obsidian spear-head, that flew to pieces at the first 

 throw, was superseded by another of better shape and more durable 

 material, fitted for the wear of centuries. The savage armed w 7 ith 

 flint weapons was no match for the man of bronze, and thus the latter 

 could take the most fertile valleys and reduce the former to slavery. 

 The possession of metallic hoes, spades, and sickles, was the beginning 

 of systematic agriculture. The soil began to produce abundantly ; 

 the supply of food was larger and more constant ; population became 

 dense ; buildings of cut stone were erected for temples, fortifications, 

 and granaries ; the accumulation of property became possible and 

 reputable ; nations were organized and armies drilled. All these 

 changes were the necessary results of the discovery of the art of mak- 

 ing bronze. Previously men were in the stone age, without durable 

 houses, without national government, without cities, without any ac- 

 cumulation of property, division of labor, literature, or prospect of 

 progress. 



The iron and printing ages made revolutions in society, but they 

 were far less important than those of bronze and steam. The bronze 

 revolution was the greater, looked at from a relative standpoint, but, 

 considered absolutely, it was small in comparison, and very slow in 

 progress, with the influence of steam. The ancient Egyptians asserted 



