664 



Agnin, when years of labor and millions of money had been ex- 

 pended in collecting a library of manuscripts, a great fire, an insurrec- 

 tion, or an irruption of barbarians or religious bigots, might destroy in 

 a day, the accumulated wisdom of past ages. But by the invention of 

 printing, all such accidents have been set at defiance. Every new dis- 

 covery, every invention, every fact, every thought worthy of being re- 

 membered, onc« committed to writing and finding its way to the press, 

 becomes fixed and imperishable, is multiplied at a mere nominal cost 

 by innumerable copies, and scattered upon the wings of the wind, into 

 every region, where man finds a dwelling place upon the earth — read, 

 reflected upon by millions, exciting new ideas, leading to new discove- 

 ries, which again finding their way to the press, pass oa in endless suc- 

 cession and progression. And thus each new discovery or invention 

 leads to many others, of which the original inventor never dreamed. 

 One suggests a new idea, crude and imperfect it may be at first, as most 

 new ideas must be ; another reflects upon it, renders it more tangible ; 

 another gives it form and shape, in the invention of some new machine 

 for the saving of labor ; another improves or perfects it, or jfrom obser- 

 vation of it and reflection upon it, strikes out a new principle of greater 

 value, which perhaps supercedes the whole. 



In this manner, the face of the world, and the condition of society 

 have been changed, and are still rapidly changing for the better. Each 

 has or may have the benefit of all the accumulated knowledge, which 

 all the past has been able to transmit to our time ; and thus, even the 

 buried generations of the past continue to labor for us, and contribute 

 by their labor to our support and enjoyment. 



Where the earth upon a given surface, in former times could only 

 support its thousands, by the improvement in the arts of production, it 

 now maintains its millions. But more advancement ha.s been made in 

 the arts of life, since the invention of printing, than in all the uncounted 

 ages which had gone before ; and more within the last century than the 

 thirty centviries which preceded ; and yet fi-om the accelerated rapidity 

 with which one invention or discovery follows another, we may reason- 

 ably infer, that human science is yet in its infancy, and that posterity 

 will look back upon the ignorance of our age, as we look back upon 

 the ignorance of the past. You are now here furnishing the materiaie 

 for science, the elements for further improvement, by bringing together 



