EFFECTS OF THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE. 55 



the means of those before unable to buy them, and so in- 

 creasing their comforts and improving their habits. At the 

 same time the practice of travelling is immensely extended. 

 Classes who never before thought of it, take annual trips 

 to the sea ; visit their distant relations ; make tours ; and 

 so we are benefited in body, feelings, and intellect. More- 

 over, the more prompt transmission of letters and of news 

 produces further changes — makes the pulse of the nation 

 faster. Yet more, there arises a wide dissemination of cheap 

 literature through railway book-stalls, and of advertise- 

 ments in railway carriages : both of them aiding ulterior 

 progress. 



And all the innumerable changes here briefly indicated 

 are consequent on the invention of the locomotive engine 

 The social organism has been rendered more heterogeneous 

 in virtue of the many new occupations introduced, and the 

 many old ones further specialized ; prices in every place 

 have been altered ; each trader has, more or less, modified 

 his w^ay of doing business ; and almost every person has 

 been afiected in his actions, thoughts, emotions. 



Illustrations to the same effect might be indefinitely ac- 

 cumulated. That every influence brought to bear upon so- 

 ciety works multiplied effects ; and that increase of hetero- 

 geneity is due to this multiplication of effects ; may be seen 

 in the history of every trade, every custom, every belief 

 But it is needless to give additional evidence of this. The 

 only further fact demanding notice, is, that we here see still 

 more clearly than ever, the truth before pointed out, that 

 in proportion as the area on which any force expends itself 

 becomes heterogeneous, the results are in a yet higher de- 

 gree multiplied in number and kind. While among the 

 primitive tribes to whom it was first known, caoutchouc 

 caused but a few changes, among ourselves the changes 

 have "been so many and varied that the history of them oo 



