Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/101

Rh true, we will enquire from what unfriendly cauſes it has proceeded, that the other countries of Europe and quarters of the earth ſhall not have inſcribed any name in the roll of poets. But neither has America produced ‘one able mathematician, one man of genius in a ſingle art or a ſingle ſcience.’ In war we have produced a Waſhington, whoſe memory will be adored while liberty ſhall have votaries, whoſe name will triumph over time, and will in future ages aſſume its juſt ſtation among the moſt celebrated worthies of the world, when that wretched philoſophy ſhall be forgotten which would have arranged him among the degeneracies of nature. In phyſics we have produced a Franklin, than whom no one of the preſent age has made more important diſcoveries, nor has enriched philoſop l h y with more, or more ingenious ſolutions of the phenomena of nature. We have ſuppoſed Mr. Rittenhouſe ſecond to no aſtronomer living: that in genius he muſt be the firſt, becauſe he is ſelf-taught. As an artiſt he has exhibited as great a proof of mechanical genius as the world has ever produced. He has not indeed made a world; but he has by imitation approached nearer its Maker than any man who has lived