HAMPDEN SOCIETY. 213 



able speed ? These, and a hundred other utilitarian tests are 

 now to be applied, and with satisfactory results, before a scien- 

 tific truth can attain the slightest degree of popularity. 



The arts have not only emancipated the mind from supersti- 

 tion and intolerance, but they have in a measure redeemed the 

 body from its bondage to labor. They wipe away the dust 

 and sweats from the human brow, and they erase from the 

 hand of man, the marks of servile toil and debasing drudgery. 

 With one half of the labor now, the working classes are clothed 

 better, fed better, enjoy more, suffer less and are more intelli- 

 gent, and more in the likeness of Him who created man " a 

 little lower than the angels," than it was possible for him to 

 have been in an age when mechanical inventions had scarce- 

 ly dawned upon the world. We reflect with pleasure and grat- 

 itude that the mind, in this phase of its development, boasts 

 no empty triumphs. The records of improvements in the arts 

 are not, like the records of arms, wiitten in blood and tears, but 

 inscribed all over with the memorials of life and labor saved, 

 pains alleviated, griefs assuaged, and multitudes lifted from 

 darkness and bondage to light and liberty. 



Science and art have not only conquered the elements, but 

 reduced them to be the servants and slaves of man. They are 

 made to draw and dig, and carry, and grind. They toil in your 

 work-shops, drive your machinery, your steamboats and your 

 cars. They light up your streets, and run your expresses, they 

 print your books, and your newspapers, they paint your like- 

 nesses and landscapes. They are the genuine laboring classes 

 in your trades and your manufactories, and are fast becoming 

 the very Helots of the commercial and domestic economy of 

 the world. They have, with most astonishing rapidity, sup- 

 planted brute force. One man now does much better and with 

 twice the ease to himself, what formerly twenty labored and 

 toiled to accomplish. I know the objection alleged against 

 this usurpation, that it takes work from the hand of the poor 

 man, and consequently his support. But this prejudice is as 

 old as the world. No advance would ever be made in human 

 progress, if the complaints and murmurs of those whose inter- 

 ests and crafts are affected, were listened to and heeded. Be- 



