PT. m. Progress and Civilisation. 113 



from the lethargy of the Middle Ages, and when 

 various discoveries and inventions imparted a new 

 impulse to civilisation. We read of the inventions 

 of printing and of gunpowder, of the discovery of 

 the properties of the Magnetic needle, and the 

 consequent improvement of Navigation. The pro- 

 gress thus made in this art led to the discovery of 

 the New World and of the passage by the Cape of 

 Grood Hope, while from the great astronomical 

 discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo in the same 

 period may be dated the birth of modern Science. 

 There cannot be a doubt either that these great 

 events did give an extraordinary stimulus and 

 momentum to the advancing movement of that age, 

 or that these powerful agents are still at work after 

 the lapse of between three and four centuries. 

 They have lost none of their original force, they are 

 not spent or exhausted ; but, on the contrary, are 

 going through a process of development, which is 

 adding to, their strength, and extending the sphere 

 of their operation. We are now better able to 

 appreciate their vast importance, and to measure the 

 immense results which have flowed from them, than 

 .when they originally burst upon the World. We 

 have inherited all these means and resources in 



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