have best contrived to control the misery and ignorance of all the others, but that in which Humanity, as a whole, has made the longest advances upon the road of Progress.

A characteristic trait of the time in which we live is the almost frightful rapidity with which each improvement develops itself, makes itself complete, spreads to the ends of the earth and bears its final fruits. I will explain.

A century, or two, probably elapsed between the invention of the sundial, and that of the hour-glass and hydraulic clock. Between the hydraulic clock and that ingenious mechanism which, they say, was sent to Charlemagne by the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, it is needful to compute more than a thousand years. The clock with weights, a piece of furniture massive and difficult of transportation, has taken seven hundred years to transform itself into a portable watch. The watch of the good old times, "the egg of Nuremburg" did not simplify and flatten itself until three hundred years after its birth. What an incubation! The mariner's compass had been invented for more than two thousand years, when Christopher Columbus conceived the idea of employing it to search for the great Indies. Gunpowder, discovered in China, no one knows when, reached Europe in the fourth century, and it was eight or nine hundred years later before men bethought themselves to make a cannon. From the cannon to the arquebus, from the arquebus to the musket, from the musket to modern firearms, the course of industry has been so slow, that more than three centuries have elapsed between the discharge of arquebuses which killed Bayard, and Colt's revolver. Observe, that glass has been made for more than three thousand years, yet optical instruments have been brought to perfection as slowly as fire-arms.

The discoveries of our Age move at a very different rate. This is because, formerly the inventor was a man apart, isolated from his nearest neighbors by his very superiority. Between him and his time, ignorance, prejudices, official and quasi-religious errors erected a thousand barriers. To discover a truth was not everything; it was necessary to make it comprehended by men, who had no idea of it; it was necessary to force it upon ancient and powerful corporations, which founded their authority upon Error; it was necessary, finally, to carry it to the ends of the earth, at a time when the smallest mountain and most inconsiderable water-course separated invincibly two nations, and when one half of the human race were ignorant of the existence of the other half.

How times are changed! To-day, all nations recognize and communicate regularly with each other: it no longer requires more than a month for an idea to make the tour of the world. The inventor no longer preaches in the desert; from the moment when he opens his mouth, his every syllable is comprehended by two hundred thousand men around him, who are all on the level of actual science, who recognize the appearance of all the problems, and who understand their solutions at a glance. Sometimes even, so universal is the ardor of progress, two explorers, separated by the

seas, find out at the same time without a word having been said. Thus, ovariotomy, a surgical marvel, came to be discovered almost at the same hour in England and at Strasburg. Thus, new planets often have two or three discoverers.* Each step of Progress, once established, becomes the point of departure for new researches: all the curious, all the ardent, all the ambitious minds in science or industry rush towards it, confirm it, ascertain its limits and dart forward with new enthusiasm. Each career becomes a noisy and tumultuous race-course, where the swiftest runner cannot pause and take breath without being distanced, or overthrown. Invent a machine the most ingenious and useful, the sewing machine, for example; if you do not give it, at the start, all the perfection of which it is capable, you will be overwhelmed that same evening with some improvement. Discover unconsciousness of pain by means of Ether, and your name will be inscribed upon the book of the benefactors of Humanity; but if your Ether was not perfectly harmless, if it sometimes sent the patients into a final sleep, chloroform will soon come to take its place, and will efface your name, to write another in the remembrance of mankind.

This co-operation of all in the work of the Age, this concurrence in well doing, this active rivalry, will result in a moral effect quite unforseen: it will abolish personal Fame. That great book, of which we just now spoke, will be covered with more names than the Column of July: but nobody amuses himself by reading the inscriptions on the Column of July. How would it be, if it abounded with alterations, additions, and erasures? The table of Pythagoras is definitely ascribed to Pythagoras, and no one will ever think of attributing the credit of it to Le Verrier, but there is not a single great discovery of our Age, which is not disputed, or at least subdivided among a multitude of inventors. To whom are we indebted for the marvels of photography? Is it to Daguerre? Is it to Niepce St. Victor, or Talbot, or Lerebours, or Gaudin, or Fizeau, or Chevalier, or Foucault? And supposing that we divide the sum among them all, will none be left for their father in physical science, Baptiste Porta, the inventor of the black chamber? And would it not be well to inscribe beside these a score of chemists, without whom the natural philosophers could never have fixed the fugitive image? Finally, will it not be needful to reserve a place for Martin, and all who, like him, have labored to engrave photography? Altogether it is a perfect calander of useful men. Another, still more numerous, might be made of those who have discovered and perfected the various uses of steam. And as for electricity! I venture to say there are five hundred inventors, all worthy of glory, and who will all be forgotten, becruse they are five hundred; whilst the monomaniac Erostratus, who fired the temple of Diana all alone, is immortal.

"By a method which does him the greatest honor, Le Verrier discovers a new planet; instantly an Englishman appears, who proves that he has succeeded in doing the same; and while each of them is setting forth his arguments, an American astronomer comes forward, who announces himself as the real discoverer, and produces his proofs of priority." (Michael Chevalier).

Of all the workmen who labor in common in the great workshop of Progress, Posterity should combine in its remembrances two entire classes, without whom the nineteenth century would have effected little or nothing. I speak of Stock-jobbers and Journalists.

Stock-jobbing is condemned by stupid moralists of the fossil species, the preachers of antiquated doctrines anathematize it; poets of routine castigate it with rhythmical blows. Governments are not yet fully decided as to its dangers and merits; they urge and check it alternately, encourage and discourage it by turns; to-day building it temples, to-morrow turning it out of doors. But Posterity, who will see our affairs more clearly than we, will do justice to the sublime invention of the Scotchman Law. Stockjobbing is the art of combining small capitals to do great things. It is this which created the royal roads of France in 1720, and all the railroads of Europe in 1850. It is this which has been the basis of all the wonders which Turgan unites in his industrial Epic poem; it is this which furnishes inventors with the sinews of labor. Stock-jobbing has its defects and dangers, its caprices and acts of injustice. It has made victims; so has steam also. It will perhaps bring upon us, some day or other, a disagreeable crisis, or we may see Europe inconvenienced by a plethora of paper. But the circulation of this paper, with which stock-jobbing floods us, will have created durable wealth. The isthmuses will be pierced, the mountains split, the rivers converted into canals, cities purified, marshes drained, hillsides planted with forests, the earth will be a more habitable abode, and the sum of good, which is the common patrimony of all men, will have doubled. Our descendents will then bless these managers of money whom Bigotry treats with sublime contempt, because she has no services to ask from them.

And we too, poor scribblers on paper, we have deserved well of the Future. It is not only because a little writer of pamphlets named Pascal invented the wheel-barrow; nor because two or three others will have solved the problem of ærial navigation; nor even because this or that one of our number discovers, from time to time, a truth of universal interest, such as the sovereignty of the people, or the principle of Nationalities. If we were only simple intermediaries, peddlers of ideas and nothing more, our part would still possess a sufficiently honorable importance. Ideas, like capital, multiply by circulation. Hence it follows, that a writer of ability performs exactly the same functions as Rothschild; he makes a little less money by doing so, that is all the difference.

A few days since, as I went down the Phalsburg road, I met a little peddler, forty or fifty years old. He had seated himself to rest upon a milestone. I sate down beside him, and after the greetings customary between travellers, I asked him if he was content with his lot? He shook his head mournfully, and replied: "I am a dealer in spectacles, a travelling merchant, as you see. Business is good enough; for men, now-a-days, even the poorest and most ignorant, like to see. The trouble is that one cannot pass through a village without the boys throwing stones at you, and without

the police demanding your passports. You can get rid of the boys, but the police are the very devil! They harrass you as if you were a criminal, and the annoyance of being taken for what I am not, has tempted me, a thousand times, to abandon my calling. I continue, however, for a man must live; and then I say to myself every night, as I lie down, that, after all, my fellowmen would be like the blind if I did not carry them into the very heart of their villages the means of seeing more clearly."

"Stop there!" said I. "Almost all my friends follow the same trade as yourself. They retail, in France and to the foreigner, glasses of every sort for the use of people's eyes. They sell rose colored glasses through which the unhappy see a future of justice and equality; blue glasses, which enable the private citizen to regard gilded thrones and glittering crowns without being even dazzled by them; magnifying glasses, through which a useful man will appear to you ten times greater than a magistrate in his glory. By the aid of the instruments which they hawk about, even in the rural districts, you will see all imposters unmasked, all oppressors driven away, all yokes shaken off, all men united in doing good; Truth, Labor, and Right, triumphant everywhere."

"Truly! my good sir, that is a trade which resembles mine, as a telescope worth twenty thousand dollars resembles a pair of spectacles worth ten cents. I am glad to believe that your friends have nothing to fear from boys nor policemen."

"To tell you the truth, their business is above all inconvenienced by the heads of departments.”

The peddler took off his hat at this name, for nobody in France is ignorant that the heads of departments are, from time immemorial, the veritable masters of the country. It is, thanks to their prudence, and in the interest of their security that the press has never been free. Sovereigns, who read but little, trouble themselves very slightly about what may be written; ministers are sometimes found bold enough to take their own course without fear of criticism. But the most liberal prince and the most intrepid minister have never succeeded in procuring us immunity from these petty officials. Each of them is firmly convinced that all journalists wish to sell red spectacles to the people, in order to overturn the government and seize upon all the officers.

Alas, what shall we do about it? Nothing better assuredly, nor more useful to Progress, than to pursue our humble profession of dealer in spectacles. It is of more avail to remain where we are, although we only enjoy seven privileges, although the public good does not always compensate us for the severities of the Administration, although we no longer perceive in the far horizon that great consolation of the proud, personal fame !

For it is necessary to take our part in it: we shall win only a collective glory. None of us, unless by some chance unforeseen, will succeed in handing down his name to posterity. But what does it matter, after all? The good we leave behind us will not be lost, for all that. Let us work!

THE RADICAL.

NOVEMBER, 1867.

C

PUBLIC WORSHIP.

ONSIDERING the education and the customs of New England

people, no one can wonder at the prevalence of the idea among them that God is pleased with the observance commonly called "Public Worship," and that He requires it of men as a duty.

The advantage of public religious instruction is manifest, and is universally conceded. But a separate claim is made for periodical public worship, as a universal duty.

The idea is that God is pleased with public applause, sincerely offered at stated times.

The assumption is that He commands it, and commands it in the Bible, though no proof of this assumption can be found there.

The pretence is that it is the duty of all to pay this observance; it is constantly so represented in sermons preached upon the subject, and in the publications of the American Tract Society. And the further pretence is that the Bible expressly requires this observance to be paid every Sunday.

Neither the idea, the assumption, nor the pretence, will bear the light of candid examination.

The Bible (even if it were admitted to be a unitary book, instead of two collections of books, and even if it were further admitted to be infallibly inspired,) gives no command for attendance on such. meetings as the Protestant and Catholic clergy hold on Sundays. Some portions of the Old Testament enjoin upon the Jews certain religious observances; some portions of the New Testament recommend to Christians certain other religious observances; but no part of either book commands such meetings on Sunday, controlled and directed by clergymen, as are customary among us, and not a word in either book warrants the pretence of the clergy that it is a duty to attend such meetings. In great numbers of books and tracts it is.