NATURAL SCIENCE TO GENERAL SCIENCE. -27 



the human intellect. The application of steam has 

 multiplied our physical strength a million-fold ; weaving 

 and spinning machines have relieved us of labours, the 

 only merit of which consisted in a deadening monotony. 

 The intercourse between men, with its far-reaching in- 

 fluence on material and intellectual progress, has increased 

 to an extent of which no one could have even dreamed 

 within the lifetime of the older among us. But it is not 

 merely on the machines by which our powers are multi- 

 plied; not merely on rifled cannon, and armour-plated 

 ships ; not merely on accumulated stores of money and 

 the necessaries of life, that the power of a nation rests ; 

 though these things have exercised so unmistakeable an 

 influence, that even the proudest and most obstinate 

 despotisms of our times have been forced to think of 

 removing restrictions on industry, and of conceding to 

 the industrious middle classes a due voice in their 

 counsels. But political organisation, the administration 

 of justice, and the moral discipline of individual citizens 

 are no less important conditions of the preponderance of 

 civilised nations ; and so surely as a nation remains in- 

 accessible to the influences of civilisation in these respects, 

 so surely is it on the high road to destruction. The 

 several conditions of national prosperity act and react on 

 each other ; where the administration of justice is uncer- 

 tain, where the interests of the majority cannot be asserted 

 by legitimate means, the development of the national 

 resources, and of the power depending upon them, is 

 impossible ; nor again, is it possible to make good soldiers 

 except out of men who have learnt under just laws to 

 educate the sense of honour that characterises an inde- 

 pendent man, certainly not out of those who have lived 

 the submissive slaves of a capricious tyrant. 



Accordingly every nation is interested in the progress 

 of knowledge on the simple ground of self-preservation. 



