170 Second Essay, preliminarij to the Series of Reports 



And to what an intense development of the energy of the 

 human mind, does it owe its safe conduct ! 



The art of ship-building is one that requires the previous ex- 

 ercise of many subsidiary processes. The wood must be hewn 

 and transported to the shore : The saw and axe makers must 

 have been at work, and the cartwright must have laboured ere 

 the shipwright could obtain the material to work upon ; and 

 even when he has obtained that, he cannot proceed a single step 

 ere he have applied to the tool-maker for his implements. The 

 hulk, we shall suppose, is finished ; the rope-maker, the manu- 

 facturer of our identical cable-twist on the large scale, the sail- 

 maker, must both be set to work; and even ere that, some pre- 

 viously finished vessel must have crossed the German Ocean to 

 bring our supply of hemp, of tar, and tallow. 



The mere formation of the vessel thus leads us to contemplate 

 many separate arts, each perhaps more important than that which 

 we are analyzing. Let us now pass to the safe-conduct of the 

 vessel, and let us attend, not to the mere bodily labour, but to 

 that succession of mental efforts which has enabled man to trace 

 his path across the ocean. The discovery of the directive power 

 of the magnet, and its application to the compass, carry our 

 thoughts back for several centuries, and transport us from the 

 sea^enthroned island to those countries whose timid sons yet 

 creep along the coasts. We thank the fanaticism of the impious 

 crusaders, and place the preachings of Peter the Hermit in the 

 list of steps by which mankind have reached their present state. 

 The compass, however, has been gradually improved, and it 

 would scarcely be fair to place all the merit among the arcana 

 of antiquity. When we reflect on the immense extent of ocean 

 that is spread over the surface of the earth ; when we bring be- 

 fore us the never ending variety of man's appetites, and his sin- 

 gular power of accommodating himself to every species of cli- 

 mate, we perceive, in the directive power of the needle, a pro- 

 vision for the safe exercise of his spirit of adventure, and 

 begin to trace a perfect unity between the design of the phe- 

 nomena of the material universe, and the subtile properties of 

 mind. But the needle and the log would, in the course of a 

 long voyage, give very erroneous results, and would leave the 

 mariner ignorant of the effects of those currents that exist in every 



