The hydraulic press., 1860-06-02
The 4ydrmtie gress,
WHO ARE OUR GREAT MEN p

WHO ARE OUR GREAT MENp
Lately, having nothing else to do, we have
been pouring over a few of the last volumes
Of the Scientific Amsifcau, that excellent ex-
ponent of mechanics philosophy, aud we
have come to the conclusion, mauger the
worlds fashionable sanctions and traditions,
that our really great men are those who
have done most to explore and unveil the
laws of nature and have labored to make
the knowledge of those laws subseryient to
human happiness. In our estimation, the
scientific mechanician, who discovers a
means of tightening the toll of human mus
cles, by harnessing the uncomplaining ele.
ments and making them work, while the
toiler can have leisure to rest and think, is
the truly great man. He is the true bene-
factor Of his race, the true motor and up
bearer of civilization
Time wasa time-and, mores the pity, that
that time has not quitegone by-when human
greatness was measured and weighed by hu-
man blood and human corpses. A man, in
order to become GREAT, in the worlds ap-
probation, was compelled to show himself
GREAT MURDERER. The greater the number
of his battle fields, the greater the number
of his slaughtered victims, the greater the
number of cities he destroyed and the lands
he devastated, the greater he stood, as man,
and tho historian nd tho vi od
each other in chronicling his fame and sing
ing peans to his glory. Strange perversity
of the human heart that it should exalt the
destroyers of mankind while it passes by
the benefactors of the race in silence and
contempt. The patient geniuses, who built
the grand cities of the world, rendering
them abodes ofpeace, " lille they embellished
them with the triumphs of architectural
skill and the glories of sculpture, have been
strangely forgotten, in history and song,
while the monsters, who transformed those
cities into masses of crumbling ruins, are the
pets of the annalist and the most brilliant
of themes for the lyrist.
Next, in the worlds laudation, but more
potent than the conquerors, come the priests
the men who profess to interpret the de-
signs of Heaven for the benefit of ignorant
humanity-and sorry we are that they have
done so little, to earn the gratitude of the
world, in the cause of scientific truth. They
have seemed to think that human ignorance
was more pleasing to their Divine Master
than human knowledge. Instead of cult
vating and extending the truths of physical
science, they have amused themselves by
the discussion of extravagant paradoxes and
ponpous absurdties. In fact, science has
found in them its most inveterate and cruel
antagonists. They denounced and anathe-
matized the Coperncan theory Of the uni
verse, and the premature death of its author
only saved him from their malignity. To
his disciple, Calico, they gave the alterna-
tive of recanting the system of Copernicus
or being roasted at the stake. Galileo, like
a sensible man, as he was, who felt and
knew that eternal truth needs no martyrs,
went soberly through the ceremony Of re-
cantation, thus saving his valuable life and
giving himself time and opportunity for fur
ther investigation into the laws of celestial
mechanics. Columbus, relying on his hy-
pothesis of the rotundity of the earth, yen-
tured to ask for ships to test it, by sailing
westwardly from Europe in quest of the In
dies, and how was he met by the priests 2
With derision and obloquv and the btterest
of gh ostly reprobation. He was held up, by
these pious cosmogonists, who believed the
earth to be fiat island floating on mystic
rious ocean, as hereto and an atheist and
the greatest marvel, in all his marvellous
achievements, is, that, with such load OF
clerical opprobrium on his head, he sue
ceeded in obtaining from the priest-rldden
court of Ferdinand and Isabella the means
of triumphantly establishing his hypothesis.
Forty years ago, when geology was timidly
lifting its young head, and had dared to in
sinuate that the earth was much older than
some people supposed it, what storms OF
abuse were hurled upon the science and its
votaries Geology, in clerical parlance, was
but Atheism in disguise, and Biologists
were but goddess materialists in masquerade
Geology, however, in spite of clerical thun-
der, has pursued its upward march, and now,
quietly but triumphantly, it stands on van
tage ground, secure from the mockeries of
ignorance and the anathemas of fanaticism.
Science is brave and indefatigable. She
brandishes no weapons and deals not in bra-
vados but she resolutely presses onward,
and each new foothold she gains she is sure
to keep. The clergy of to-day, unlike their
predecessors, have, many of them, bowed
down before the potency of her demonstra-
tions and yielded liberal assent to her rev.
elations. Religion, when stripped of big
otry and superstition, is the natural friend
apd comnanion of Scienep. apd tho twain