Dependence of Progress upon Neiv Knowledge. 167 



observations came to its assistance. These various 

 facts prove the statement made in the Preface of 

 this book, that present knowledge only enables man- 

 kind to maintain its present state. 



Not only the mental, but also the physical advance 

 of mankind is essentially dependent upon the discovery 

 of new truths. Men's physical actions are determined 

 not alone by their inherited and acquired tendencies 

 and the influence of external nature upon them, but 

 also by their ideas ; as, a man thinks, so also to a 

 large extent does he act. Nations who do not adopt 

 new ideas do not either mentally or physically 

 advance, but change only so far as their immediate 

 surroundings change ; the Chinese are a remarkable 

 example of this ; even the tendencies which men in- 

 herit, were largely produced in their ancestors by the 

 influence of ideas. The great fact of the essential 

 dependence of human progress upon new knowledge r 

 is a truth, the importance of which to man cannot be 

 over-estimated, and is one which statesmen, ministers- 

 of religion, and philanthropists should seriously study. 



Much of the apparent advance of this nation how- 

 ever is not real. The great bulk of our newly 

 published knowledge, even that which is scientific,, 

 and considered by the public to be new, consists, not 

 of new truths, but of old ones dressed in new forms of 

 expression : 



" The tale repeated o'er and o'er, 



With change of place and change of name. 



Disguised, transformed, and yet the same 



We've heard a hundred times before.'' Longfellow. 



