It is bringing
forward the masses, elevating the millions who work. It will rouse
into activity their innate energies, and bring forth their inward
might. It creates THOUGHT to guide the hands that set all this vast
machinery in motion. It diffuses and strengthens intellectuality, and
the pride of intellectuality, making of the men who work something
more than mere machines themselves. It is developing and perfecting a
mightier engine than any of man's invention; one that tyrants cannot
always control, that kings cannot always manage. That engine is the
human mind. Like the steam-engine, it is gathering power, and
capability for the exercise of power, and the time will come when it
will go crashing, with resistless energy, among thrones, overturning
despotisms, upheaving dynasties, sweeping away those false theories of
governmental institutions, which guarantee to one class of people a
life of luxurious idleness, coupled with a prerogative to rule; and
which dooms another class to an hereditary servitude, changeless as
fate, and relentless as the grave. It will vindicate the rights, and
ennoble the destiny of the masses of the people who work.
"But where is this career of progress to end? Is there a limit to this
onward movement? We know that the world has made greater advancement
in the present century, than it did in the five thousand years
preceding it, and that new discoveries in the sciences and the arts
are being made every day.
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