INVENTIONS OF THE FUTURE. 513 



himself, and by means of mental achievements analogous 

 to those which have raised him to his present state. 

 Those inventions and discoveries which have made him, 

 by the grace of God, king of the animals, lord of the 

 elements, and sovereign of steam and electricity, were 

 all of them founded on experiment and observation. 

 We can conquer nature only by obeying her laws, and in 

 order to obey her laws we must first learn what they are. 

 When we have ascertained, by means of Science, the 

 method of nature's operations, we shall be able to take 

 her place and to perform them for ourselves. When 

 we understand the laws which regulate the complex 

 phenomena of life, we shall be able to predict the 

 future as we are already able to predict comets and 

 eclipses and the planetary movements. 



Three inventions which perhaps may be long delayed, 

 but which possibly are near at hand, will give to this 

 overcrowded island the prosperous conditions of the 

 United States. The first is the discovery of a motive 

 force which will take the place of steam, with its 

 cumbrous fuel of oil or coal ; secondly, the invention 

 of aerial locomotion which will transport labour at a 

 trifling cost of money and of time to any part of the 

 planet, and which, by annihilating distance, will speedily 

 extinguish national distinctions ; and thirdly, the manu- 

 facture of flesh and flour from the elements by a chemical 

 process in the laboratory, similar to that which is now 

 performed within the bodies of the animals and plants. 

 Food will then be manufactured in unlimited quantities 

 at a trifling expense ; and our enlightened posterity will 

 look back upon us who eat oxen and sheep just as we 

 look back upon cannibals. Hunger and starvation 

 will then be unknown, and the best part of the human 

 life will no longer be wasted in the tedious process of 

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