286 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



to numerous industries, to medical science, to chemistry, 

 and the electric light, the telegraph, the telephone, the 

 phonograph appear ! A modest genius finds out the law 

 of elasticity of gases, another genius constructs a ship, 

 another an engine, and, see, man crosses a sea or a 

 continent with the eagle's speed, while innumerable markets 

 are opened in all regions and resistless machines move the 

 countless arms of industry ! And so forth without limits. 



And the general consequence ? The whole world is 

 transformed ! Short words, these, and soon said, but slowly 

 apprehended. THE WORLD IS TRANSFORMED ! Industry and 

 trade are ubiquitous and incessant, enlightenment spreads 

 like a fertilising inundation, misery is reduced, health is 

 made more secure, barbarism yields to humane influences, 

 nations visit one another, the most distant countries are 

 brought within a few days' journey, Pekin speaks with 

 London, new continents open new homes for the European 

 races and nourish the Old World, the Western peoples see 

 trade and wealth flowing to and from the East, the seat 

 of civilisation is being transferred to other climes and 

 younger nationalities, brotherhood and kindliness soften 

 and elevate humanity, and lastly morality and freedom, in 

 the wake of knowledge, extend the horizon of peace the 

 supreme blessing. And all this the fruit of our scientific 

 men's labours, the fruit of a certain number of discoveries 

 of divine laws divine indeed in their simplicity, grandeur, 

 and bountifulness. 



By the side of material results, Intellect has reaped 

 results equally beneficent, fruitful, and admirable ; each step 

 forward leading it to a new field of reflection and explo- 

 ration, and ensuring its enlargement, elevation, and depth. 

 Of the results which the preceding survey records, there 

 is one particularly to which we are compelled to attach 

 paramount importance, because of the immense consequences 

 it involves both in the scientific and in the philosophical 

 spheres, affecting as it does almost everything which the 

 human mind prizes in the highest degree we mean the 

 establishment of the doctrine of the universal predominance 

 of natural law in the government of the world. As the 



