PT. in. Progress and Civilisation. 119 



civilisation ; let us select the ' Warrior ' man-of-war*. 

 How much of human skill, contrivance, invention, 

 and Science, have been combined to produce that- 

 work ; how many hands have laboured, how many 

 brains have toiled, how much of Art and Science, of 

 mechanical ingenuity and skilled labour, have been 

 put in requisition to launch that mighty construction 

 upon the ocean ? A legion o.f miners, iron-founders, 

 ship-builders, carpenters, sail-makers, cordwainers, 

 and artificers of almost every description, have united 

 to frame her. Astronomy has given us the means of 

 ascertaining her place in the trackless ocean. The 

 great discovery of the fifteenth century the 

 Mariner's Compass has enabled us to direct her 

 course ; the foremost invention of our own times 

 the motive power of Steam has empowered us to 

 impart resistless velocity to the mighty mass. Arm- 

 strong guns, conical shot, all the most recent im- 

 provements in Artillery, have been enlisted to 

 augment her force as an Engine of War. Nothing 

 more modern, no better type of Progress, could be 

 chosen. But among all these modern inventions, 

 among all these achievements of the fifteenth and 

 succeeding centuries down to our own nineteenth, 

 do we owe nothing to a much earlier epoch, to a 



