England, where she teaches inanimate machines to do every thing but speak and think. A peasantry once ruddy, cheerful, happy, even to a proverb, are now immured within the cottonmill's foul atmosphere, or chained down to the monotonous loom, from earliest dawn till long after departing light. Their forefathers, in ruder times, went forth with the morning sun, gay and careless, to the fresh hay-field; the light jest and merry song lightened their labour; the cooling breeze renovated their strength; at mid-day they sought the hedge's green shelter, and healthy exercise gave a zeal to their frugal meal; at evening's close they returned to a quiet home, a cheerful hearth, and undisturbed repose. But their children are favoured of science, and the whole scene is changed! When the sun rises at his brightest, it is but to render more palpably visible, the stifling cloud of dust through which his beams reach the operative's colourless cheek. For the fragrance of nature is exchanged the effluvia of oil; for the sweet voices of birds, the unceasing rattle of machinery. The mid-day meal is snatched with greasy fingers, in the same cheerless prison; and, when the sun is gone and the season of rest approaches, then only is the worn-out spinner dismissed, to seek in some dirty alley, perhaps a comfortless garret, where he may enjoy a few hours of oblivion before the weary bell calls him forth to the toils and sufferings of another day. Truly, it is not of the MYSTERY of modern science we have to complain; her influence is practical enough; it comes home to the people; the labourers of Britain can vouch for the fact. These are powerful arguments: they only know how powerful who have sojourned in our manufacturing districts-who have convinced themselves of the apalling truth, that factorylabour has been protracted, day after day and year after year, under an artificial and unhealthy temperature of eighty or ninety degrees, to fourteen, fifteen, even sixteen hours per day -and who have noted the pale, haggard faces, the premature decrepitude of figure, and (that surest mark of wretchedness) the slovenly neglect of personal decency, which characterize the drooping victims of an overgrown and a vice-bringing system of production. But let us not misconceive of causes, nor mistake temporary and incidental for enduring and necessary effects. Science has enabled man to produce the various articles of necessity and comfort with a facility and in an abundance that sets all calculation at defiance. This is a glorious, a joyful circumstance-one of the happiest victories of modern knowledge! Yes! we may look even on the heart-sickening picture of the poor workman's daily wrongs, on his wasting strength, on his pallid countenance, and say, that the apparent source of his misery is, in itself considered, a boon and a blessing to mankind; that the same magic powers of mechanism which scem to have ground him to the dust, will yet raise him to ease and affluence-will one day give the lie to the fabled curse that dooms him to sorrow and drudgery-will become for him slaves more powerful and obedient than those of Eastern romance, and will supersede all other slavery. True-most lamentably true--our ignorance of social science has hitherto extracted woe and suffering from the source whence comfort and abundance should spring, "even"-to employ a poet's fanciful simile Even as those bees of Trebizond Which, from the sunniest flowers that glad Those mechanical agencies which, controlled by wisdom, shall one day become our menials, are now our tyrant-masters; and, as with fire and water, when these escape our control, the misery they may inflict is in exact proportion to the services they might render. The first step in improvement was to discover these invaluable powers; the next will be rationally to employ them. And, whatever the immediate results, it was an important advance in civilization to take that first step: circumstances seem now combining to hurry on the second. From the abstract argument of those who assert that man is conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity—that his nature is innately corrupt, his thoughts only evil continually, and his heart desperately wicked-I appeal to the secret consciousness of each one who now hears me. We have all faults and failings enough; but who among us has not felt that he might have been something nobler than he is-that his nature was better than his education? Who but has struggled against the world's mercenary influences, or sighed over the frank, confiding kindness of early youth? The struggle and the sigh are evidences sufficient against the dark creed of depravity. And, if the theologian turn to the world around us, and bid us note its crooked dealings, its mean chicaneries, its selfish tricks, I reply, that even when man learns these, he never loves them. It is not in the selfish bustle of the busy mart that we can judge what manner of spirit we are of: man's natural home is in the country, and it is amid rural scenes that his native feelings freely expand. Who that has sat down in the balmy evening, to watch some lovely landscape, and looked into the quiet sky, and over the verdant earth, and breathed the air, scented by the breath of flowers, and heard the blythe birds pouring forth their wild notes of gladness and music-who, at such an hour, but has felt himself a being of a good and a gentle nature? Who, as each bland influence came over him, but has felt how much of love and virtue, how much of noble resolve and generous aspiring was stirring within him? Who, at such an hour, has doubted of man's capability to be all that the most sanguine could desire him? Who, thus silently communing with his own heart, but will predict for his race a progress from evil to good, from selfishness to affection, from violence to gentleness? But we shall be reminded, that an enthusiast's dreams prove nothing, while the actual condition of the world proves much. Argue ever so sanguinely, evil in every shape exists; be the cause within us, or without us, it is equally real-its actual influence is just the same. Theorize as we will, some cause has produced suffering in the past, produces it in the present, will produce it in the future. The causes of human suffering, however real and prolific, seem to me (with the exception of death and, perhaps, of occasional disease) rather incidental and temporary than necessary and irremediable. They have their rise in passing ignorance, not in resistless fate. Man blunders into suffering, he is not condemned to it; he makes rather than finds unhappiness. This earth is full of beauty, redolent of enjoyment, and with all our ingenuity in marring the fair work, we are but partially successful even were our success for the moment complete, there would be comfort in the reflection: The marring is man's doing, and can be changed; the beauty is nature's, and is unchangeable. Among the proofs that man's character is changing for the better, none, perhaps, is more characteristic of modern improvement, than the gradual disuetude of brute force, and the gradual introduction, throughout society, of a system of inductive mildness in its place. We begin to be ashamed of using the birch at school, or whipping our children into good behaviour; public opinion cries out against flogging in the army and navy; even the irrational inmates of our lunatic asylums are now ruled rather by kindness than a strait-jacket. We speak of the rack and the thumb-screw as of by-gone horrors. We never burn heretics now, by way of converting them. We begin to suspect, that capital punishment may be dispensed with; and that it is a feudal barbarity to leave a husband the right of beating his wife, even with a rod no thicker than his thumb; physical strength no longer, as among ancient chieftains, gives rank or confers consideration. The supremacy of intellect is felt, the power of moral sentiment is acknowledged; and the sex, less strong, but more amiable than man, is gradually obtaining the rank to which it has always been entitled. You One most encouraging item yet remains to be noticed. yourselves have seen and experienced it. The shackles are cast loose from opinion. What, at no former period of the world, men could do, they can do to-day. They can express, with legal impunity, their honest sentiments upon every subject. I hazard nothing by the assertion, that there are no principles so heterodox, be they of morals or politics, of social science or of theolooy, but they may be spoken, unchallenged by the legal authorities, not in America alone, but in Great Britain also, at this day; provided always they be brought forward, as all principles ought to be, in a spirit of seriousness, of mildness, and of charity. In concluding this hasty and partial sketch of a subject, fully 16 HOPES AND DESTINIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. to treat which would be to review the whole range of human knowledge, and trace out its earliest history; let me lay before you one important consideration connected with the prospect of man's progress in the future. The conditions necessary to the accumulation of just knowledge, and the consequent increase of human happiness, are chiefly these That all useful facts be easily recorded and widely circulated; that men of various districts and countries have extensive facilities of comparing and exchanging their respective views; and that there be no artificial check on the expression of opinions. Within a very few years, for the first time, perhaps, in human history, have these three conditions been fulfilled. The printing press has multiplied, as with ten thousand tongues, each item of individual knowledge: it has stamped immortality on experience. The conquered powers of steam have approached, as it were, the natives of distant states to each other, have thus increased, immeasureably, the chance of correcting narrow prejudices by varied intercourse with the world, and given to men at home the best advantages, without the labour of travelling. And-the last, best effort of modern intelligence, without which, the rest were comparatively useless -the press may print, and men may speak the honest truth, without mystery and without reserve. Thus, from the tardiness of past improvement, it were idle to reason for the future. The ratio in former generations, is not the ratio in this. While men had neither freedom to express, nor facility to disseminate their thoughts, well might the regenerating spirit seem laggard or stationary. Now, at last, shall we see the human mind try its strength and speed. Nay, has it not already started on the noble race ?-examining the credentials of despotic power, resisting the approaches of ecclesiastical encroachment, trying all creeds, testing all principles, proving all things, and holding fast that which is good. Well may we rejoice in its destiny! Rationally may we predict for it a progress, if gradual, yet repaid; if occasionally. interrupted, yet continually accelerating. Men may be sacrificed--mankind will be the gainers. Individuals may struggle for a time against error and prejudice, only to sit down in hopeless discouragement, or to perish before ever their reforming efforts have met success or reward:-the human race will still survive, will still improve; each coming day richer in knowledge than its predecessor, and every succeeding generation wiser and happier than the last. FINIS. Watson, Printer, 15, City Road, Finsbury. |