ADDRESS 



ON HUMAN PROGRESS, AND THE SOURCES OF THE TRUE AND PERMA- 

 NENT GREATNESS OF NATIONS, 



By Joseph Ashbury Smith, M. D., M. R. C. S. E. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : — I come before you this night to speak 

 of the history of progress, more especially in reference to these 

 United States. 



If any expression of mine should grate harshly on the ear, I beg 

 that judgment may be suspended until formed, not from isolated 

 expressions, but rather from the general scope and tenor of my 

 illustrations, and the argument thence arising. 



The poet philosopher Goethe, the giant of the literature of 

 Germany, has well observed, that " nature knows no pause in 

 unceasing movement, development and production;" and that, 

 " whether we speak of the earth on which we tread, or of the 

 intellect on its surface, there is a curse attached to standing 



STILL." 



Now, that which is true of individuals, is true also of nations. 

 That curse can only be averted by the earnest cultivation (in the 

 first instance) of natural science. For, if it be contended that 

 moral science is of highest importance to man as a responsible 

 agent, the foundations of morality are closely related to a correct 

 knowledge of the laws and phenomena of the physical and mate- 

 rial world around us. It is in the absence of this knowledge 

 that the untutored savage now, as in the infancy of the world, 

 worships the central source of light and heat, or the stars of the 

 glittering, midnight sky,' and that with more than pardonable 

 poetic fancy, to giants, fairies, and even to devils, have even in 

 comparatively modern ages been ascribed the construction of those 



