8 
the very heart of cities, and running their almost eternal round by the 
invisible power of steam, through like scientific skill. And then let him 
reflect that all this is also private in origin and ownership, rather than the 
fruits of public oppression, wrung from the sweat and tears of down- 
trodden millions — or the plunder accumulated by conquests, such as 
those of Carthage or India — or the Incas and Montezumas of the new 
world ; and what astonishment must then ovei whelm him in all his 
preconceived conceptions of the feebleness of science and of individual 
effort ! And what marvels does it prefigure to us all, yet to spring from 
the further application of scientific skill in human affairs, under the im- 
pulses of superior education, still going on among the whole communi- 
ty, and of more free and equal influences so liberally showered upon 
them by Government ! The idea is flung out, I think, by the younger 
D ’Israeli, that Manchester, in England, is as striking to illustrate the 
triumphs of science, as London is those of commerce ; or Paris, those 
of fashion; or Athens, those of ancient art ; or Rome, of conquest; or 
Jerusalem, those of religion. But look a little further at another case. 
Suppose some Anacharsis could be recalled from the tomb, and witness 
not only all these establishments among us, but the transportation of 
their fabrics by scientific railroads and steamers, over this vast continent, 
which his travels and probably his dreams never reached, and thence 
Into the heart of Europe, or on the other side of the globe, up the splen- 
'did rivers even of the Celestial empire — would he not imagine that 
some power, greater than Egyptian, Macedonian, or Roman, had arisen, 
and devoted long all its usurped energies to the accomplishment of such 
wonderful undertakings? Yet we could tell him, that the whole is but 
another fruit of modern progress in science and its various uses, under 
the direction, in most cases, of only individual enterprise — a single me- 
chanic, here and there, like Whitney or Fulton, giving birth to an in- 
vention, and then sustained in putting it into operation by the volun- 
tary investments of some merchant or physician, or of some inde- 
pendent farmer or lawyer. This is true not only of the vast machi- 
nery in manufactures in this country, but of many of those canals and 
railroads so subsidiary to them, and equally as astonishing as works 
of science and private enterprise, whether the Green Mountains are to 
be tunnelled, or their ridges cloven down by deep cuts ; or merchan- 
dise or passengers are to be whirled over half a continent in a few days. 
Private enterprise in many, though not in all, has furnished both the 
■.science and the capital. It feeds the iron monster that draws all, and 
