MATERIAL EFFECTS OF SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS. 293 



cannon, bridges, tunnels, steam trading and war ships, rail- 

 ways ; paper, from packing-paper to the finest vellum, papier- 

 mache trays, tables, and cabinets ; furniture, from the rough 

 stool to the throne ; printing, from the label to the book, 

 advertising placards, printed calico, engravings ; lighting, 

 from the primitive torch to the oil-lamp, gas, and electric 

 light; and so forth continuously. Each cause producing a 

 multitude of effects, all good and beneficial ; progress being 

 initiated in the main by the four things which mark the 

 great strides of civilisation THE TOOL which enabled men 

 to face and overpower the wild beast, and to protect them- 

 selves by garments and dwellings against climatic evils ; the 

 machine, and first THE PLOUGH, which enabled them to work 

 the ground and grow food ; THE SWORD, which enabled them 

 to secure the survival of the fittest by mastering the un fittest 

 races, and founding society ; THE BOOK, which enabled them 

 to preserve and propagate accumulated experience. 



But how thoughtless and ungrateful humanity has been ! 

 It remembers the names of early " men-of-prey 3> and sur- 

 rounds those names with a glorious halo, whilst, of its early 

 benefactors, none is known even by name. The inventor of 

 the plough, the earliest and greatest of them, is forgotten 

 utterly ; equally unknown, to speak of a few only, are the 

 inventors of the mill, the compass, the clock, the organ, 

 glass, paper ; and just as unknown are the creators of as- 

 tronomy, arithmetic, geometry, algebra, alphabetical writing, 

 and many other men, all of them progenitors of human 

 happiness. Let every one of us cherish the remembrance 

 of the forgotten ones ; we owe them the life we live to-day, 

 for, "the discoveries of great men," as Buckle has finely 

 observed, " never leave us ; they are immortal ; they contain 

 those eternal truths which survive the shock of empires, 

 outlive the struggles of rival creeds, and witness the decay 

 of successive religions." 



And turning from mechanical applications to pure science, 

 the material benefits to civilisation resulting from the latter 

 are still more astonishing and fruitful than those spread by 

 the former. In the forefront of all the benefits which science 

 has succeeded in bestowing upon humanity, we must name 



