Scientific Lectures, 171 



tor has given to the human race great mental power, but to no one 

 person sufBcient to grasp all knowledge, "When we have listened to 

 the wonderful revelations into minute organism, as developed by the 

 microscope, and find there the perfection and beauty of mechanism 

 — or when, through the telescope, we learn of the constitution and 

 government of those great but far distant heavenly bodies, and find 

 there the same perfection of beauty and order ; or when the spectro- 

 scope, photometer, and barometer tell of the constituents of matter 

 around us ; or when an essay on the simple tea-kettle informs us of 

 the practical application of knowledge to one of the most useful and 

 powerful of the agents of modern progress, then we realize how 

 impossible it is for one mind, however capacious, to grasp even a 

 tithe of the discoveries which are daily being made. My subject 

 (modern engineering) requires a comparison of the past with the 

 present. Then discoveries were of rare occurrence, and still more 

 rarely applied to the useful purposes of life — now they are not only 

 very frequent, but are immediately applied to the safety, comfort and 

 convenience of man. The natural capacity of the mind of man has 

 not increased, and therefore there must be some other explanation of 

 its present changed condition. An enthusiast, like Dr. Cummings, 

 reasons from it that the millennium is approaching, and another that 

 intercourse with the immaterial world is at hand — but the subject is 

 too profound for our finite minds, and similar to Divine prophesy, 

 " the event is necessary to its solution." An idea attributed to Bacon 

 is that, as in all animate life, thought must be impregnated by thought, 

 to produce any useful result. In ages past intercourse between man 

 and man was limited. He lived and died without having traveled 

 beyond the horizon seen from his birth-place. Learned men were 

 confined to cloisters. They rarely met, and their reflections were 

 only occasionally set down in manuscripts, the circulation of wliich 

 was confined to a few readers. Hence by this Baconian theory but 

 few scientific discoveries were ever made, and these were but seldom 

 applied to the useful purposes of life. This age, on the contrary, 

 presents the opportunity for frequent meetings and comparisons of 

 thought. The steamer, with its ten days of confinement, produces 

 intercourse between minds which otherwise would have never met. 

 The railway car, with its rapid motion, exciting thoughts in the 

 dullest traveler, brings otlier minds in contact. A prolific press sends 

 forth the thoughts of each writer, to encounter those of other minds 

 engaged in the same, or some kindred pursuit. While the telegraph 



