8 ASPECT OF SOCIETY WITH RESPECT TO 



or Zenghis Khan ; but the steam-boat which ascends the 

 Delaware or the St. Lawrence will be continued to be used, 

 and will carry the civilization of an improved people into 

 the deserts of North America, and into the wilds of Canada. 

 In the common history of the world, as compiled by authors 

 in general, almost all the great changes of nations are con- 

 founded with changes in their dynasties, and events are usu- 

 ally referred either to sovereigns, chiefs, heroes, or their 

 armies, which do in fact originate from entirely different causes, 

 either of an intellectual or moral nature. Governments depend 

 far more than is generally supposed upon the opinion of the 

 people, and the spirit of the age and nation." 



If we now survey the actual condition and aspect of society, 

 with reference to the principles of intellectual civilization which 

 we have considered, we shall find it to present an immensely 

 diversified prospect of the application of the Knowledge of Na- 

 ture of the Physical Sciences^ to use the language of technical 

 literature to the promotion of the happiness of mankind; and 

 of the acquisition of that knowledge, for this purpose. We 

 have seen how the hydrodynamic principle of the resistance 

 of fluids, the mathematical laws of curves; the knowledge of 

 the winds and the tides, of the metals, of motion, and of va- 

 pours, (which are included in different branches of the sciences 

 of astronomy, pneumatics, mechanics, and chemistry ;) have 

 been rendered available to the happiness of the human race 

 in the progress of navigation ; and within the last few months 

 only, a great and successful effort has been made to exchange 

 the comparative tardiness of even the most considerable speed, 

 derivable from the muscular power of animals, in travelling by 

 land, for the celerity of mechanical impetus, obtained by the 

 Steam-engine : I allude, of course, to the Liverpool and Man- 

 chester Rail-road, and to the Steam-carriages by which it is 

 traversed. To turn our attention to other branches of human 

 industry : In the erection of bridges and piers, the incom- 

 pressibility of stone has been exchanged, to a great extent, 

 for the superior resistance to pressure of iron, an article 

 extracted from minerals by human labour directed by chemi- 

 cal knowledge and, by a further refinement in construction, 

 we have in some cases substituted, in such erections, the tena- 

 city of iron, for its own incompressibility, thus obtaining aug- 

 mented strength, with still greater diminution of weight, and 

 proportionate increase of stability : we have dispensed, in a 

 great degree, with the raw vegetable matter and the prepared 

 but not altered fat of animals, formerly universally employed 

 for obtaining what we call artificial light; and now procure that 

 essential to our comfort, from the combustion of gas a species 

 of air obtained by the chemical action of heat, either upon 



