NATURE SUPERIOR TO ART. 47 



depth of human knowledge, and the very height 

 and perfection of human art, are, in truth, no- 

 thing more than the revealing and applying of a few 

 of the laws and principles of nature ; and though 

 we often flatter ourselves that there is something 

 profound in what we know, and mighty in what 

 we do, it is still all in nature ; and what we call in- 

 ventions, even clever ones, are only the applica- 

 tions of discoveries ; and of discoveries which lie 

 as much in the way of one man as another, if both 

 are equally diligent in search of them. 



It is matter of common remark, that many of 

 the most valuable discoveries, or applications of 

 discoveries (call them inventions, if you will,) have 

 been made as it were by accident, by persons not 

 having many of the ordinary pretensions to know- 

 ledge, or not being those to whom we would have 

 looked for such discoveries or inventions. The 

 mariners compass and quadrant; the steam-engine, 

 and the apparatus by means of which it opens and 

 shuts its own valves; printing in all its forms, 

 and with all its improvements; chronometers that 

 keep correct time in spite of the changes of heat 

 and of cold ; and, indeed, all the more wonderful 

 and useful applications that have been made of the 

 properties of matter generally, or of the particular 

 properties of particular kinds or combinations of 

 matter, have almost all been the result of what 

 we, in common language, are in the habit of call- 

 ing chance : that is, they have been made by 

 those who, as we say in common language, were 

 not " the most likely persons to make them." 

 But when we say that, we are wrong; and the 

 discoveries are not owing to chance, any more than 

 any thing else is so owing. They are the effects 



