38ti CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



the rocks around us? Is nothing common but the glittering sands 

 beneath our feet and the glittering stars on which we gaze ? Sir, these 

 are indeed common, and well it is to understand their uses, and, so far 

 as our dim vision can pierce, even their natures also; but are there not 

 things even more common, nearer to our inmost selves, harder, indeed, 

 but more profitable to be understood; objects not limited by the three 

 dimensions, not ponderable, not cognizable by any of the senses, and 

 yet subjects of precise definition, of logical argument, of philosophical 

 interest, and of overwhelming importance? Sir, the soul of man is a 

 very common thing; his relations to his Maker and to his fellows, the 

 laws of his moral and intellectual being, his past history and his prob- 

 able future destiny, the principles of government and the laws of 

 political economy all these are common things, the commonest, indeed, 

 of all things, and shall we make no provision for instruction in these? 



But, sir, the knowledge of what are called the physical sciences is of 

 far less importance, even in reference to the very objects which they 

 are supposed especially to promote, than is generally believed. There 

 was an age I should say ages brilliant and glorious ages of philoso- 

 phers, of statesmen, of patriots, of heroes, and of artists, and artisans, 

 too when as yet the sciences of chemistry, and mineralogy, and metal- 

 lurgy had neither name nor being; when experimental research w T as 

 unknown, and the raw material of the arts was prepared for subsequent 

 manipulation in no laboratory but the hidden workshops of nature; 

 when the profoundest philosophers were content with resolving all 

 material things into the four elements, and men knew nothing of that 

 subtle analysis and those strange powers whereby the elements them- 

 selves are decomposed, the ingredients of the atmosphere solidified, 

 and granite, porphyry, and adamant resolved into imperceptible gases. 

 And what, sir, have our boasted researches taught us to accomplish in 

 the industrial arts that the cunning workman of Egypt, and Tyre, and 

 Greece could not do three thousand years ago ? Can our machinery 

 rear loftier piles than the Pyramids, or move more ponderous masses 

 than the stones of Persepolis, or the monolithic temples of Egypt ? Is 

 a European princess arrayed in finer webs than the daughter of a 

 Pharaoh, or decked in colors more gorgeous than the Tyrian purple ? 

 Can the chemistry of England compound more brilliant or more dura- 

 ble pigments than those which decorate the walls of the catacombs of 

 the Nile? Can the modern artist, with all the aid of his new magni- 

 fiers, rival the microscopic minuteness of some ancient mosaics, or can 

 the glassworkers of our times surpass the counterfeit gems of antiquity ? 



Sir, modern chemistry, metallurgy, and machinery have multiplied, 

 cheapened, and diffused not improved the products of industrial 

 art; and herein lies our superiority, not that we can do better, but, by 

 bringing to our aid the obedient forces of nature, we can do more, 

 than our predecessors. In this point of view, regarding modern im- 



