572 



sliips principally with oars, and seldom ventured from sight of land ; 

 plowed their lands with a wooden wedge or a crooked stick, with oxen 

 harnessed by the horns ; reduced their grain to flour, principally with 

 the pestle or the hand-mill. They had neither cotton factories nor 

 woolen factories, nor any other machinery worthy of the name. The 

 few manufactures which they possessed wei-e the result of hand labor 

 and the rudest of instruments. Even those (to us) indispensable arti- 

 cles, pins, were invented but little over 300 years ago, and the common 

 sewing needle was unknown in England until the reign of Queen 

 Mary. 



Nay, it may be said the only branch of manufactures which seemed 

 to flourish in the ages of cla-ssic anti<|uity, was the manufacture of their 

 gods. These could always be made to order. Great wa« Diana of the 

 Ephesians. 



The ancients lived in a diflferent world from ours. They had but 

 four elements, or simple substances, while we have some fifty -eight. 

 Their elements were earth, air, fire and water, neither of which is an 

 «Iement now. To them the earth was flat and stationary, of indefinite 

 length from East to West, but of limited breadth from North to South: 

 while the sun, moon and stars, fastened to the firmament like so many 

 brass buttons, moved around it. Pythagoras had once attempted to 

 set the eartli in motion ; but the people of his day were opposed to 

 the agitation, and it seems never to have got fairly under way till Co- 

 pernicus, (a little over 300 years ago,) and after Gahleo gave it a help- 

 ing hand. But even then, its motion was prohibited, and Copernicus 

 .and Galileo imprisoned by the Pope. Fortunately, however, by the 

 aid of the printing presis, the earth proved too strong for the Pope's bull. 

 and has kept on its way ever since. 



But the press has never been forgiven for this offence, and (in coun- 

 tries subject to his influence) is still looked upon with suspicion, and 

 kept under the strict supervision of the police. Not only did they live 

 in a different world, but man himself was a different being. We have 

 the concurrent testimony of all the learned physicians of those times 

 that the blood never circulated in their veins or artei-ies, till about 200 

 years ago; and Harvey, who first announced its circulation, was de- 

 nounced by those learned physicians as a quack and ac impostor. 



