The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1848-09-23


his muscles he is strong only in his faculties In
physical strength, how much superior is an OK or
horse to a man-in fleetness, the dronedary or the
eagle. 1t Is through mental strength only that man
becomes the superior and governor of all animals.
But it was not the design Of Providence that the
work of the world should be performed by muscular
strength. God has filed the earth and embuedthe
elements with energies of greater power than al |
the inhabitants of a thousand planets like ours
Whence come our necessaTies and our Injuries p
those comforts and appliances that make the differ
ence between houseless, wandering tribe Of In
dams in the Far West, and NewEnglnnd village!
They do not come wholly or principally from the
original, unasssted strength of the human arm, but
from the employment through intelligence and
skill, of those great natural forces with which the
bountifu Creator has filled every part of the mate
rial Universe. Caoric, gravitatiOn, expansiblity,
eompreh ensibity selecricity, chemical affinities
and repulslons, spontaneous yelocities-these are
the mighty agents which the intellect of man har-
nesses to the car OF improvement The application
of water wind and steam to the propulsion of ma
chnery, and to the transportation of men and mer-
chandise from place to place, has added ten thou
sand fold to the actual products of human industry.
How small the wheel which the stoutest laborer
can turn, and how soon will he be weary Com
pare this with wheel driving thousand spindles
or looms, which a stream of water can turn, and
never tire. A locomotive will take five hundred
men, and bear them on their journey hundreds of
miles day. Look at these same five hundred
men, starting from the same point, and attempting
the same distance with all the pedestrian eques
TRANS toll and hardness. The cotton mills of Mas
sachusetts will turn out more cloth in one day than
could have been manufactured by all the inhabit-
ants of the Eastern Continent during the tenth CEN
fury. On an element which in ancient times was
supposed to be exclusively within the control Of the
gods, and where it was deemed impous for human
power TO intrude, even there the gigantic forces Of
nature, which human science and skill have en-
listed i'm their sarVice confront and overcome the
raging of the misunderstanding tempests and
tides, escaping reefs and leeshores and careerng,
triumphing around the globe. The velocity Of
Winds the weight of waters, and the rage of steam,
are powers each one of which is infinitely stronger
than all the strength of all the nations and races Of
mankind, were it all gathered into single arm.
And all these energies are given US on one cOndi-
ti0n-the condition of intelgence-that is, Of edu-
cation. Had God intended that the work Of the
world should be done by human bones and snews,
He would have given an arm as solid and as
strong as the shaft of steam engine, and enabled
us to stand day and night, and turn the crank of a
steamship while sailing TO Liverpool and Calcutta.
Had God designed the human muscles TO do the
work of the world, then instead of the ingredients
of gun powder gun cotton, and the expansive
force of heat, He would have given us hands which
could take granite quarry and break It's solid
acres into suitable symmetrical blocks, easily as
We now open an orange. Had He intended us for
bearing burdens, lie would have given US Allan
team shoulders, by which we could carry the vast
freights of railcar and steamship porter carries
his pack. He would have given us lungs by which
we could blow fleets before US, and wings to sweep
over ocean wastes. But instead of iron arms, and
Atlantean shoulders and the lungs of Boreas, He
has giyeu us a mind, soul, a capacity of know
ledge and thus of appropriating all these energies
of nature to our own Instead of telescope
and microscopic eye, He has given us power to IN
vent the telescope and microscope. Instead Of ten
thousand fingers, He has given genius inventive
of the power loom and the printing press. Without
cultivated intellect, man is among the weakest of
all the dynamical forces Of nature; with a cult-
waited intellect, he commands them all. "A thou
sand slaves may stand by river, and to them 1t ls
only an object of fear of superstition. An intel
ligent man surpasses the ancient idea of a river
god he stands by the Penobscot, the kennebec,
the Merrimac or the Connecticut; he commands
each to do more work than could be performed by
hundred thousand men-to saw timber, to make
cloth, to grind COMMAND they obey. Ignorant
slaves stand upon a coal mine, and 20 them It Is
only worthless part of the inanimate earth. An
intelligent man uses the same mine to print mill
lion of books. Slaves will seek TO obtain the same
crop from the same field year after year. though the
pdbunI of that crop is exhausted; the intelligent
man, with his chemists eye, sees not only the mi
nutest atoms of the earth, but the imponderable
gases that permeate it, and he is rewarded with a
luxuriant harvest. Nor are these advantages con-
| fined to those departments of nature where heI
mightest forces are brought into Tequisition. In
accomplishing whatever requires delleacy and pre-
| csion nature is much more perfect than men, as
she is more powerful in whatever requires strength
Whether in great or in small operations, all the
Improvement in the mechanical and the useful arts
comes as directly from intelligence as bird comes
out of SHE'LL or the beautiful eoOrs of flower Out
of the sunshine The slave-worker is for ever pry-
ing at the short end of Natures lever and using the
back, instead of the edge, of her finest Instruments