Epidemics. 277 



hours ; or more distant adventurers, who ply by ship or land 

 from distant parts for mutual exchange of goods ; or, 

 through instruction by missionaries or other friends, are 

 brought into sympathy and fellowship as individual mem- 

 bers of one large and variously-gifted family. 



From whatever point it is viewed open or secret, social, 

 political, or religious the great and grand movements in 

 the world are now promoted, and effect is given to them, by 

 association, and not by the wealth, or influence, or social 

 position of any one individual. In all these movements the 

 great centre Estate is the Press. Gas, steam, electricity, 

 and education may all lend their aid to secure one general 

 result, but daily and periodical literature is the nest in 

 which all are nurtured, and in their onward movements are 

 sustained. 



But without a strong bias, which by feeding is promoted, 

 for progress and development, the Press might work in 

 vain, and individual members might groan and sigh under 

 wrongs and servitude ; but the individual desire for position 

 in the social world is so great, and oftentimes repeated with 

 a never-ceasing multiplication of adventurers in the same 

 field of change and advance, that the stream of free and 

 independent thinkers, from the lowest grade of intellect to 

 that of the most multifarious and gigantic proportions, is 

 waxing greater and greater ; so that, ere this epidemic or 

 anthropological era is ended, the supremacy of free and 

 associative thought appears likely to encircle the entire 

 world. Black and olive, copper and florid, or white appear 

 from the remotest parts of land and sea, within a range of 

 little less than sixty years, to have encompassed a circle of 

 transition from bondage to independent, though limited, 

 thought, which throws into the shade all efforts at general 

 civilization which have influenced the world during any 

 previous period of its history. 



