Page:M F Maury address before the Philodemic Society.pdf/11

 ingenuity. But to-morrow, the ever busy mind of man, acting under the impulse of an age eminently utilitarian, pushes on with its discoveries, and finds more room for improvement: the powers of ingenuity are again taxed with a new idea, and the next day brings forth a plus ultra.

We were not content to snatch the lightning from the clouds, and to turn the thunder-bolt aside from its mark; for in the act electricity was discovered to be an important agent of nature. Finding that man might rule the lightning, the utilitarian sought to use it; as knowledge with regard to it has increased, its uses have been extended, until ingenuity has contrived to fashion it into wings for thought, and then to charge it with the instant delivery of messages as far asunder as the poles.

Philosophers have found new elements. The old dogma of fire, earth, air, and water, is exploded. Light, heat, and electricity are now the agents; with these we send invisible couriers through the air; with these we print and paint, spin and weave, and endow machinery almost with the attributes of intelligence. With such agents the world is set in motion. Nature employs them in all her works, and when man begins to enlist them into his service, he may well boast of a step gained, and talk of advancement and improvement.

Studying nature and her works, he has discovered that, so far at least as we may judge, all matter is ponderable or imponderable; that the natural state of the former, is a state of rest; and of the latter, a state of motion. That the imponderables, as light, heat, and electricity, are the agents which, acting upon ponderable matter, set the world in motion. Life, animate or inanimate, is the power by which