ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 1G3 



marked off step by step by the advances he made in his mechanic 

 arts. The more he became independent of nature and capable of 

 forcing her into his service the more time and inclination he found 

 for the perfecting of his implements ; and the more he perfected 

 his implements the more capable he became of subduing nature. 

 And this interaction has never ceased, it goes on to-day. But the 

 achievements of to-day are not the conquest of savage beasts, nor 

 the solution of the problems of food and shelter and warmth. We 

 are overcoming time and distance; we are conquering the barriers 

 of sea and mountain ; we are finding out the more hidden forces of 

 nature, and subjecting them. The fruit of our inventions is not seen 

 in rough flakes of stone lashed by sinew to rude hafts, but in the 

 mighty movement of the railway train thundering across the conti- 

 nent, or the click of the telegraph as London talks with Calcutta. 

 And every step in progress has been a step in the improvement of 

 man's condition from the first to the last. And so it shall be in 

 the future. 



Artists depict the genius of invention as a voluptuous female 

 figure, in various stages of imperfect attire, attended by innocent 

 boys in their primitive nudity, and with gear wheels and anvils and 

 other rough equipments of the artisan in ill-assorted proximity. 

 This is a feeble conception. The genius of invention is not a crea- 

 ture of delicate mould, but one of brawn and sinew. His voice is 

 no gentle song of lullaby, but comes to us in the deafening clatter 

 of Lowell looms and the roar of Pittsburgh forges. Mighty and 

 beneficent and responsive to human wants — this is the kind of song 

 h'e sings in his rugged rhythm : 



" I am monarch of all the forges: 



I have solved the riddle of fire ; 

 The amen of Nature to cry of man 



Answers at my desire. 

 I grasp with the subtle soul of flame 



The heart of the rocky earth ; 

 And hot from my anvils the prophecies 



Of the miracle years leap forth. 



I am swart with the soot of my furnace, 



I drip with the sweat of toil ; 

 My fingers throttle the savage waste, 



I tear the curse from the soil ; 

 I fling the bridges across the gulfs 



That hold us from the To-Be ; 

 And build the roads for the bannered march 



Of crowned humanity." 



