Ci>yi. ^oo

YA. t

IlMOReA:N'IC FOSCES

OEDAINKD TO STJPEE3EDE

UMAN SLAVERY

• ^ .BY THOMAS EWB AN Kv'"-'-
AUTHOR OF "HTDEATJLICS AND MECHAJSICS," "THE WOIUJ) A
WORKSHOP," "THOUGHTS ON MATTBE AND ^,_
 - FORCE," etc:

[Oeisisaui eeab bbpobb the Amebioas Bthsologicai. Societt.]

NEW YOKE:-
WILLIAM EVERDELL & SONS, 104' FULTON STREET--
1860. .: N;-: '^^ . ¦

EsTEBED , according to Act of Congress, iu the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty,
Bt ¦VyrLLIAlI EVEEDELL k SONS,
In the Clerk's Oifice of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District
of New Yorfe.

J. H. TOBITT,
COMBINATIOy-TTPE PEirTTEli,
1 Franklin Square, N. T.

INOEG-AMC FORCES, ETC.

This Essay consists of
I. Thoughts on Slavery irrespective of its political aud moral
relations, and
II. On tiie plenitude of the earth's store of cheap inorganic forces
for superseding it, and meeting at every stage of progres
sive civilization fresh demands for agricultural and me
chanical motors.

It may safely be averred that most contentions, political, relio--
ious, social and civil, arise from contracted ideas of the present con
dition of thin'gs, and from isolating them too much. By lookintr
beyond them, we should perceive that existing evils are incidental
to progress, and doomed to disappear as society advances. It is
microscopic views of the conflicting scenes of life that lead themel-
ancholy to mourn over them, and sometimes to wonder how provi
dence can permit them.
Of all subjects of discussion, it is not easy to name one to which
moral, scientific or philanthropic sagacity can be more profitably
directed than that of human labor, or to a more exciting one at pres
ent than that of forced labor. Passing by its current evils, Negro

4 ON SLAVEEY lEEESPECTIV.E OF
Slavery must be considered either an artificial excrescence on the
face of society, or a result of natural la-ffs. If the former, it may
and ought to be suppressed ; if the latter, it exists independently
of its abuses and can only be removed in accordance with Nature's
arrangements for that purpose — If such she has made.
'^ySl.avery among the Greeks and liomans, and their predecessors
and successors, v,'as wideiy different from what it is in America. It
was chiefly the enthralment of men of their own race, while with us
it consists in the subjugation of an inferior and foreign one: Amoncf
the first nations of old, demands for labor appear to have been ade
quately met by natives ef the soil, and hence negro slaves were
comparatively very few ; so few that they were in no wise distin
guished by either discipline or laws from white helots. But an
other state of things was revealed in the discovery of America, and
one unexampled in the history of the East. Here, a hemisphere
was suddenly opened to human enterprise, without a predial popu
lation, for the Indians preferred extermination to subjection to sys
tematic labor ; and they still prefer it through every latitude, the
few meagre exceptions having no sensible effect in arresting their
progressive, and it is to be feared their utter extinction.
Everything that lives has to labor for its living. Bodily strength
or power, adapted to the diverse conditions of life, is a natural
necessity, which we have in common with the brutes; but a radical
difierence exists between them and us in this, that while they need-
no more than as individuals they inherit, we require additional quan-
titles from external sources to meet exigencies of social and civil life.
To work, is therefore man's destiny, to call in other forces to assist
liim, his privilege. But for this he had been made stronger, or the
vv'ork required of him had been less. From the general character
aud diversity of animals he can press only a few into his serrice.
At the most, we derive but an inappreciably small fraction of the
musuular energy hourly expended by the earth's living tribes.
From the leviathans of the ocean we obtaiu none, nor frbm thestrong-
Cot of birds, nor from the vigorous of oarnivera among quadrupeds.

1X3 POLITICAL AND MOB.iL RELATIONS. 5
The ox is worked but little, and in some countries not at all, the ass
and mule are good slaves in their way, but the horse is mo.stly
relied on in the temperate and cooler zones, and even there the
expense of keeping him prevents many from employing him.
As a general principle the cost will always determine the chief
labor employed. The cheapest and most accessible will be most in
demand. It was because intelligence in human toilers enabled
them to do work which animals could not perform, except through
the medium of mechanism, that the enslavement of the more easily
subdued quadrupeds was followed by that of the least resisting por
tion of our own species. It is so still.
To observing minds the thought can scarcely avoid occurring,
that, in a matter so widely affecting the Creator's administration of
the world, as human vassalage, provision must have been made for
its incorporation into the system, if it be, what its upholders insi.sfc,
of divine origin, and that nothing more is needed to settle the dis
quieting topic, than to determine this point. But upon it the posi
tions of the disputants are opposite as the poles, so that the ques
tions, Is the principle of negro bondage sanctioned by nature ? If
yea, what is to be its duration ? Its terrestrial boundaries ? And
the social and civil. regulations that should govern it? — are yet to be
settled. There is much uncertainty, not to say indifference, respecting the -
laws that govern the affairs of the world. Few suspect that the
great movements of our species are as much subject to them, as
those of the inferior creatures. To partial observers, .every thing^
appears at sixes and sevens — a mighty maze •without a plan ; as if
the Earth, after being fitted for, and stocked with, inhabitants, was
left without constitutional and conservative provisions — an idea
which can only enter the heads of those who, like ants, look not
beyond their own little hillocks and movements — >or those who imag
ine the earth consists of conglomerate masses thrown together with
out order or systematic arrangement.
For lack of abetter acquaintance with the subject, we may be

ON SLAVERY njEESPECTIVE OF

mi

listakcn in thinking the primary cause of slavery has been some
what avoided, and that matters outside of its acknowledged rela
tions have been overlooked, which have a potent influence over it.
H'tunau thraldom is not a thing of yesterday. The world has been
accustomed to it from the beginning. Dating from ages anterior
to written history, and in vogue among aU people, it has become a
kind of second nature, if it be not a natural institution. At all
events, nature, or if you please the science of nature, must be con
sulted about its abolition, as well as international law and the deca
logue, for it certainly is as much a question of natural philosophy
as of moral and political economy. Scheme, and quarrel, and
fight about it as much as we please, it can only be permanently
settled in accordance with principles independent of Party and
even of national sympathies and antipathies.
The dictum, acceptable to many, that " negro slavery is just and
beneficent"' should have been qualified. As a general principle
it sanctions the introduction of slave labor to wherever its advocates
may choose to carry it, and it urges ita extension, for if it be just
to establish it, it is wrong to neglect it, and criminal to abolish it.
Then, if it is not to be dispensed with at present, what of the
future 1 As demands for labor inevitably become more nressinc'
as society improves, the slave trade, if nothing intervene, must
increase and keep increasing, for it is folly to hope that under such
circumstances either political or moral influences can arrest it; 
not even if they were, as they are not, uniformly opposed to it.
The prospect of its extinction would seem therefore hopeless, for,
supposing the earth's wild lands eventually brought under cultiva
tion, the same number of laborers would be wanted to keep them in
cultivation. In the warmer regions especially, it is contended that neo-ro
slavery can never cease, for if cotton, and sugar, and other staples
of the tropics should lose their importance in the markets of the
world, other products will succeed them equally requiring the
forced labor of blacks. Indeed, the perpetuation of slavery in one

ITS POLITICAL AKD MORAL KELATIONS. l
form or another is inferrable from the writings of naturalists. Trac
ing it to diversities of physical and mental structure, in connexion
with an universal instinct of the strong to subjugate the weak, and
perceiving no indications that nature contemplates any change in
these respects, the conclusion with them is that the effects will be
as enduring as the cause.
This leaves the negro- not a glimpse of hope in the ages or epochs
to come. It limits neither the range nor the direction of hi.s thral
dom. If such be really his fate, he is to be pitied, subject too, aa
he must be, to the shackles and lash. Called in to overcome natu
ral habits and instincts, these will be deemed as requisite in the
future as in the present, for that which is innate in the race is not
to be extirpated by external appliances to individuals.
Natural justice teaches us that negro slavery if just and benefi
cent anywhere, can only be so in climes congenial to negro consti
tutions, and where the labor is not destructive of health, nor in
amount preternaturally exhaustive of life, nor enforced under rules
prohibitive of mental improvement. No system can be a right one-
that does not recognize and treat them as men, however low in the
scale of humanity masses of them may be.
Nature is the exponent of the deity. Let us therefore con
sult her. Unless we greatly misunderstand her, she assents to
what follows : —
The earth was designed for a working establishment — a scene of
varied and ceaseless activities. It is a plantation to be put in and
preserved in fruitful condition, and a factory of miscellaneous
things, to be kept going, with facilities to circulate both products
and goods. The basis of the popular triad. — Agriculture, Manufac
tures and Commerce.
The prosperity of the establishment as a whole depends on the
extent to which these departments are cultivated. Every section
thrives as it fosters one or more of them, and degenerates as it
neglects them.
As the work requires a constant outlay of forces, adapted to

b ON SLAVERY IKEESPECTIVB OF
meet innumer.able exigencies and contingencies in each department,
a sj?rios of them is provided, beginning with human power, that by
the usR of it experience may be had to manage others. The -great
business of man as the head or lessee of the establishment may be
resolved into the proper selection and employment of these.
Work -so diverse in its nature, minute in its details and compre
hensive in its relations, requires diversities in the characters and
capacities of the workmen, and these are also provided by a law of
the earth's organization. She is variously constituted. Her cli
mates and products difi'er extremely between the equator and the
poles, her vegetable and living products, being adapted to influences
to which they are indigenous. We all know how heat and moisture
varv wth geographical position, and how they affect man's muscu
lar strength, hence to meet this and other exigencies — .
Mankind is made up of races that vary in physical and mental
structure, to accord with the diverse conditions of the earth's great
sections, each constituted to flourish best in climates akin to its
native one. Uniformity of race can only agree with an uniform
earth, and therefore diversities of races must be as lasting as the
varied constitution of the. earth.
Unity pervades creation, not less in its parts than as a whole.
Th6 various countries form one earth, and the diverse races of
men one species.
Of the number of races naturalists are not agreed, nor yet of
the smaller divisions. Instead of presenting a constant. and unir
form character, oac'a consists of a group of varieties or families,
ordained to meet the minor geographical and physical conditions of
their primary locations. Linnseus divided the species into five races,
Buffon into six, Cuvier into three. Others have run the number
up to fifteen. Dr. Pickering, of the U. S. Exploring Expedition,
makes it at least eleven. The classification commonly accepted
enumerates five races- and twenty-two families. It is sufficient for
our purpose. -.;

ITS POLITICAL AND MORAL RELATIONS. 9
The Cauca.sian — 'Or white race, containing the Caucasian, Celtic,
Germanic, Arabian, Libyan, Nilotic aud Indostanic families.
Tho MIongalian. — the Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Polar, Mongol-Tar
tar and the Turkish families.
Tho Iilalay — Malay and Polynesian Families.
The American — American and Toltican Families.
The Ethiopian — Negro, Caffrai-ian, Hottentot, Australian, Alfor-
ian and the Oc-e.inic-Ncgro Families.
Incertitude about the number of races and sub-races arises from
the difficulty of ascertaining where one commences and terminates.
There are no abrupt beginnings and endings in nature. Gradation
by imperceptible degree.s is a general rule, while the range open
to our perceptions is, in all things, very limited. It is only when
the changes become palpable that we acknowledge thera. The or
ders, classes, families and other divisions of plants and animals may
be obviously distinct — as much so as colors in the prism, and yet
the precise lines where they join are no more to be detected than
those of the prism. So it is with our own species. The difference
between the races most apart every one perceives, but not where
one blends into another.
Diversity of races was necessary to the dispersion of man over
the establishment, and to give him full possession of it. But for
them, the greater part would have remained unknown, aud its re
sources been lost. As rivers and their tributaries are requisite to
fertilize the earth, so are races and sub-races to people and improve
it' One river cannot water it, nor one people occupy it.
As with animals, one race cannot perforra the functions of the
others. If it' could, there had been no need of the others.
As already observed, congenial locations are assigned to each,
bej'Ond which emigrants will be aliens. Within certain parallels
the white race will always flourish most, and so with the negro and
intermediate races. The people of Europe would never exchange
it for Africa, nor those of India barter it for Lapland or Canada.
Thus, while every, race has its appropriate work to do, it has the
most eligible placc to do it in.

10 ON PLAVEEY lEEESPECTIVl", OF
This arrangement does not imply, as might hastily be inferred,
that each race should be confined within its original boundaries, be
cause there are, and have ever been, vast regions in congenial cli
mates, lying waste for lack of cultivators. But independent of that,
emigration is an active and indispensable element in the economy
of the planet. Things would stagnate upon it, were it not for the
circulation of its occupaiits. Its surface, like that of the ocean, is
designed to be agitated and crossed by living streams and currents,
of varied and ever varying velocities. Voluntary emigrations have
always obtained, and are now proceeding on scales perhaps not
larger than those vast involuntary removals which characterized the
policy of the conquerors of old — showing that the most conflicting
of human acts and influences do not interrupt the progress of nat
ural laws. Vegetable and animal products differ in different coun
tries, so that what one people lacks another can supply, and thus is
established a universal and perpetual incitement to travel and com
mercial exchanges.
Though perfectly biilanced, the professional relations between the
races have hardly been explained. Perhaps it is too soon for that.
But that each has its assigned task in erecting, supportino- and
enriching the great social structure, there is no doubt. That which
is to extend over all is to be the work of all.
To carry on the work to the best advantage, one race is designed
to be foremen to the others. This is one of the results and pur
poses of inequality in them. There can be no progres.g anywhere,
or in anything, without external elements to start and maintain it.
Every movement to be general must first be partial, and to be effec
tual it must be gradual. " Throughout the visible universe an uni
versal order and gradation in the sensual and ment.il faculties is
observed, which causes a subordination of creature to creature "--.
and man to man. Every institution must Iiave its managers, every
ship its officers, every society ita teachers, every army its leaders.
The white race is the leading one. The others are stationary,
and always have been, where its influence has not reached them.

ITS POLITICAL AND MORAL KELATIONS. 11
When would civilization have come if its vise and progress had
been given in charge to any of them, and could it have ever come
had it depended on the lowest? The idea of progress is peculiar
to the Pioneer race. In this matter the world is a Lancasterian
school, in which the highest class furnishes instructors and inonit.ir.s
for the lower ones.
The natural order of the races is indicated by the features, com-
plexion, the hair, &c. Color is, with sorae, the chief test, beginning
with what Is called white and deepening in shade through yellow
and olive to ebony and jet. Whatever the test is, the white man is
acknowledged to stand at the head of the series, and the negro and
kindred castes at the bottom. As our present business is with these
two, there is no need to refer to the intermediate ones. While phy
sical inequalities in the races are admitted and dwelt on by writers
on the natural history of the species, there are those who contend
for an equality of intellect in them all. Contrary to analogy, to his
tory and observation, they award the same amount to the lowest and
to the highest race, as if diversity of physical did not inevitably im
ply diversity of mental structure, and as if the economy of our orb
did not require it in races as well as in individuals of every race.
They, moreover, overlook the absolute universality of the principles,
of variety and gradation. It would be an anomaly if these did not
pervade the mental as much as the bodily formations of men, and
not merely the races as a whole, but each race in itself. It is in
conceivable how the extreme diversities of labor required of our
own race, could be carried on harmoniously, or at all, with iinifor--
mity or equality of intellect, or of intellectual capacity. The dis
tinguishing feature of the negro race is its mental inferiority, and
hence its unbroken association with barbarism. Individual excep
tions affect not the law, except to confirm it. Were the negro not
intellectually below the white man, it would be impossible to enslave
him. The origin of power is in the mind, not in the body.
It is a cruel satire on the negro race to assert that they are equal
to the highest in intellect, aud consequently in capacity for improve-

12 ox SLAVERY IEEE3PECTIVE OF
ment-. If they had the power of progress given them what have
they done with it, since through the lapse of ages they have been
and still are immersed in barbarism. The blame, if anywhere, is
with ourselves. They are waiting for the strong race to help them up.
The mission of the white race is to extend civilization over the
earth. That is, to extend to the other races its own achievements
in arts, manufactures and commerce, that they may become active
partners in the business and sharers of the profits. In order to do
this, appropriate portions of the work must be performed by them.
In the case of tropical and semi-tropical regions there can be no
doubt about this. To reclaim them, the labor of negroes is indis
pensable, and hence it would seem that they must do the work vol
untarily, or iQVolunt.arily, since they, and they only, are specially
con.stltuted by nature to do it.
Those that deny normal inequalities in the races, must admit that
there exist ordinances associated with climate, which exercise a
controlling infiuence on human as well as on animal labor, and that
there is no ignoring the fact of the past and the present predomi
nance of the white race — that it is the Leader of the rest, and that
among the latter are tribes peculiarly fitted, by low organisations,
for tbe lowest kind of labor; in consequence of which they have
b^'en subjected to it, right or wrong, from the earliest times. Then
the other alleged fact, that the Pioneer-race cannot carry civilization
ovur tropical and equatorial regions without the aid of blacks; and
though this does not necessarily imply the enslavement of colored
1-dborers, it is contended that, if the richest portions of the earth
are to be reclaimed from primitive wildness, they must do the
work. It does not follow from this subordination of one race to another
that Nature sanctions our prevailing slave svstems. Her code is
very different to most of them. There can be nothini" harsh or in
human in it. It is doubtful if it contains the word 'slave'  cer
tainly not the popular idea and practices connected with it.
As the palm-tree cannot flourish in high latitudes nor the fir-tree

ITS POLITICAL AND JIOEAI.. EELATIONS. 13
in low ones, so by a general law, black races deteriorate in vivacity
and vigor as they recede from the tropics, while the physical and
mental energies of white men diminish as they penetrate them.
'.riiere oau be no interchanging or intermixing the fauna and flora of
Bot and cold climates without dwarfing both. Nature has therefore
ordained a dividing line, or lines, between white and black labor
¦¦.^-hich cannot be ignored with impunity, whether to balance power
between States, or for any political purpose whatever. As when
two confluent rivers join, or where the edges of the hot gulf stream
touch the cold Atlantic, whirls and eddies cross and recross the
line of separation without displacing it, so local agitations will, here
and there, drive negro labor over its natural boundaries, but cannot
keep it from returning.
Without presuming to indicate the line (which can hardly coincide
with any one parallel of latitude) it certainly is improperly invaded
where the dark children of the sun aro poured into the special homes
of the white race. Wherever this has taken place the penalty has
been enforced, and thougli pride may for a while be blind to its ef
fects, it is always evinced in the absence of ^yo.gress, the universal
and everlasting test of degeneracy.
"While t'nere are those who from the conviction of the heart rather
as we think, than of the understanding, denounce negro thraldom
in toto, there are champions of it, who apparently more frora the
impulse of the passions than of the judgment, insist on their right
to take It as far North as they please. Surelj', the equatorial, tropi
cal and semi-tropical regions ought to suffice for it. Nature has or
dained it to be confined within them, and they who force it beyond
them, can only do so with loss. You may attempt, says the proverb,
to drive away Nature by violence, but she ia sure to return.
The doctrine that upholds negro slavery, irrespective of geogra^
phical limits, has recently sprung up, and has led to marked changes
of sentiment in living politicians. But a few years ago, some of
Virginia's chief sons maintained that she could never be in. vigor
ous health till she got rid of, what they called, ' the black vomit,'

li ON SLAVERY lEKESPECTIVE OF
and now her welfare is made to depend on it. Without it she will
die 1 The former sentiment coincided with that of Washington,
Jefferson, Patrick Heury, Madison and other natives of the State,
that slavery in it was a wrong to the enslaved, a peril and mischief
to tho enslavers, and a blight to the community. But they are
said to have been mistaken because they lived and died before the
subject had been thoroughly discussed in view of Scripture and
reason. The error lies in the unlimited application of- the principle, as if
that which is true in the abstract must be practically so in all
places and under all circumstances. By the same rule negro sla
very may be as strongly justified by reason in Greenland as in
Louisiana, and by Scripture in Lapland as in Brazil. The great
men just named formed their conclusions from long experience as
planters and slave-holders, and from their knowledge of the com
parative value of white and black labor in their native clime. We
cannot but believe that their opinion will be found fully sanctioned
by Nature, and that ere another generation passes away, in obedience
to a higher law than any in their statute book, her people will de
clare her a free State ; as other States have unwittingly obeyed it
before them.
It is a weak point in the slaveholder's code, to claim a right to
carry the system deep into the temperate zones, since their occu
pants have an equal right, at least, to say they shall not ; otherwise,
it would depend on the will of the former whether any part of the
earth shall be reserved for white Labor — that is, for the perfect de
velopment ofthe white race.
It was therefore a grave political error to break do'sro the Mis
souri Compromise Line, and it is perhaps an equally grave one to
delay its restoration, or the adoption of another. Were Southerners
to succeed in forcing slavery over it, the recoil would inevita'bly
push the line further South ; for there is an influence at work in
this matter th.at no legislation can arrest.
Nature and sound policy are never at variance ; and we may as

ITS POLITICAL AND MORAL KliLATTONS. 15
well attempt to drink up the sea a.s to succeed in opposition to her.
All the troubles in the world arise from fighting against her. There
are no natural evils in reality. It is blasphemy to make the asser
tion. . In few things does man play the fool more egregiously. We
abuse Nature's gifts and then call them evils.
The subordination of one race to another is irrespective of the
modes in which it may be enforced. Mon violate Nature's statutes
as they violate their own, bat do not thereby abrogate them. Plarsh
aud mild treatment of slaves, arising from diverse dispositions of
masters, are moral questions that no more affect the principle than
parental severity affects that of filial obedience, or cruelty to ani
mals our dominion over them. Hence, if those who oppose negro
vassalage ^^er se hope to destroy it in its abuses, they must be disap
pointed. Every principle in physics and ethics has been profaned,
and some to a greater extension of human suffering than in negro
servitude. Forces from the expansion of airs are probably ordained
to be the chief among the agents of progress through all coming
ages — Nature's greatest gifts to our species — and one has been
prostituted to the destruction of life surpassingly appalling, and
still is so with increasing effect. Society itself is a divine institu
tion, but who would destroy it to get rid of evils incident to it?
The laws of nature are necessarily independent of moral laws.
The subordination of the lowest race, being a principle of nature,
is not amenable to human jurisdiction, but the abuses ofit, by slave
owners and trader.s, are humaii acts, which human laws can reach
and correct.
There is no isolating any of the races. They are members of one
family, bound inseparably together in one concern, and moving to a
comraon destiny. The negro is as necessary to complete the series
as the white man. We cannot fulfill the charge given to us with
out his assistance, nor can he do without us. We originate, he imi
tates. We excel in one and he in the other. He is not to be treated
as if the characteristic element of progress was not in him. In this
respect, and others, he differs from us only in degree. With him

K) ON SLAVERY iEni:spi-:cTiva of
the germ is slower in its growth. The development of high intel-
lect;'.a.l endowments is retarded, thathe may contribute labor incom-
p.itible with thera.
Conversation between individuals stimulates thought, elicits nev/
ideas, and inspires fresh alms. This principle of reciprocal rela
tion pervades every division and sub-division of the whole species.
It begins with individuals and ends with the races. They arc to
act and react on each other in like manner. With them it is but
conversation expanded.
The races are not to commingle and be dissolved in a common
stoc-k. This is a corollary of thepreceding. If the species was to
be homogeneous its elements had not been dissimiLar, but, as already
intimated, not till the earth's sections become assimilated in climate
and products, can the fundamental law which maintains variety
throughout the living kingdom be cancelled, or ignored. Amalga
mation of wlute and colored blood is bad enough on limited scales .
were it possible to become general, the most disastrous and revolt
ing results would follow — an ineradicaable physical and mental lep
rosy would be entailed on t'ne whole, and the beacon or standard of
progre-ss would vanish. For with the leading race it would be sunk
out of sight iu the mongrel and conglomerate mass; Incitements
to progress there then could be none. All ideas of it would be
gone. { To promote the fusion of the highestand lowest races is an unpar
donable crime against the species, and treason against the Divine
administration of the planet. Like other crimes, it carries its pun
ishment with it. Besides what h.>.s just been stated as a general
result, white blood rebels in the mulatto. It resists- slavery in pro
portion to its infusion, and is ever ready to throw off the yoke under
the most desperate circumstances. It engenders the fiercest feel
ings, and passions, that have been characterized as demoniacal.
Kaces and nations must do the work assigneti to them- or give up
their possessions to those that will do it. The law on this point,
though obviously required to preserve intact the economy -of the

ITS POLITICAL AND MOKAL RELATIONS. ii
planet, is calculated to awaken sympathy for the sufferers. The
American race aud some families of other races are examples.
Such are some of the propositions sanctioned by nature. .If any
appear doubtful, we think that can only be due to the imperfect
manner in which they are presented. We therefore cannot resist
the inference that human vassalage is ascribable to a deeper agency
than man's ; hence its universality as an element of society from
the beginning. That it is intended to accomplish a wise and benefi
cent purpose, and to be mutually advantageous to enslavers and
enslaved cannot be questioned.
We hold then, that opponents of negro thraldom -per se cannot put
an end to it by any way they have yet proposed because, notwith
standing their sympathy for the oppressed, nature is against them ;
but that they will succeed in repelling it from chief portions of the
temperate zones, for she is there with them.

II.
Admitting that much of modern slavery is an abuse of the nat
ural subordination of one race to another, unless nature has made
arrangements for its ultimate abolition, we must accept the dictum
of those who maintain that negroes are ordained to be helots for
ever. With many, we have, as already intimated, no faith in ita extinc
tion by moral suasion or penal statutes. Both have long been tried,
and to little purpose, except to show their insufficiency. The evil
sought to be removed lies deeper than they can reach. They may
palliate but cannot eradicate it. Its roots, extending to tha lowest
depths of man's selfish nature, must cease to be nourished before
they can be torn up. As long as it is profitable, it will live. To
kill it, something better or cheaper must take its place.
To the statement, that before planters will give up slave labor

IS FOP.CTiS PROVIDED BY NATCKE
they must be provided with another, abolitionists reply, that it is
not sought to take the slave from his work, but simply to make him
a free workman. Be it so. That may be partially carried out. It
cannot become general, till the moral organs everywhere prepon
derate over the animal ones. We thiuk not then, were even that
to come to pass. Still, we believe the salvation looked for by the
friends of the negro will come, but not from the quarter whence
they expect it.
As we cannot reconcile the perpetuity of human degradation with
our ideas of the Creator, whose protecting care extends overall men,
wo have no hesitation in asserting that there must be means pro
vided for the elevation of every race, though neither naturalists nor
statesmen may have found out what or where they are. We assume
a priori, the proposition, that the entire species is to be relieved
from excessive labor in connexion with its mental and moral eleva
tion, and consequently that there exist agents in the natural world
for superseding it. And, from the same consideration of the univer
sal parent, we moreover hold that animals enslaved by us will, b)-
the same agents, be proportionally relieved. It can form no part
of His plan that any of them should be prematurely exhausted of
life, as too many of the noblest of our quadrupeds are — their very
heart strings strained to breaking by work imposed on them.
Let this be conceded, and it follows that, as we of the white race
are placed at the head of the earth, and its vegetable, mineral and
living products subject to us, the continuation of the harsh treat
ment of animal and human laborers, rests with us. This moment
ous re.sponsibility is hardly suspected because, however grating to
our pride, the most ad vauopd of nations are only emerging from ages
of ignorance : upon them the light of science is only beginning to
dawn. The true relation of man to the earth, the professional char
acter he is to sustain upon it, the uses he is to make of its materials,
and the great things he is to accomplish with them, have yet to be
opened and proclaimed.
Progress, general though not uniform, is the law of the earth's

FOR SirpEESEDING SLAVEEY. 19
organization and our own. Her stock of materials can' never be
used up because thej' are being over renewed ; and, as there are
no limits to their properties and uses, the arts are to become indefi
nitely extended, and consequently corresponding additions to the
stock of industrial labor called for. The work of the world must be
done, and, as it is constantly swelling in amount, no deduction frora
current sources of labor can possibly be hoped for. On the con
trary, the general awakening of nations to new branches of indus
try and trade, denotes that, if fresh accessories to or substitutes for
slave labor be not introduced, the time will come when all Africa
will be unable to raise negroes enough to meet the demand.
There are moral diseases which yield only to physical remedies.
By overlooking this fact, vast amounts of philanthropy are ex
pended to little purpose. The trade in ardent spirits, ales, wine,
tobacco, opium, and all kindred things has not been diminished by
temperiince crusades. When it fell off in one it rose in others, and
such we presume, will be tho result tUl cures are discovered in
innoxious or less noxious stimuli. So also with Negro slavery.
Neither it, nor its worst features, can be suppressed till other agents
of labor are ready to take its place.
But are there suc'n ? If the growth of society requires them,
beyond all controversy. Yes. Whatever that calls for is attainable,
no matter how novel or startling, or even impossible it might seem.
Only make it fairly known and (as William Howitt has well ob
served) the immense mass of talent, energy, learning, and genius,
slumbering in the great chaos of human society ^olien qitickened
hy the breath of high occasion, starts n]), and is ready to carry to
its accomplishment every mortal enterprise. So it is with the great
agents of labor.
There is no fear that negro servitude can be permanent in the
temperate zones, but then can it ever be superseded within warmer
parallels, for it is there that it is destined to be concentrated ? "We
believe it can and eventually will be, and by a class offerees which
are now only beginning to be evolved.

2.0 FORCES PROVIDED BY NATIJEE
Though we do not pretend to point out in them an immediats
cure for the evils of slavery wherever it prevails, we profess to
indicate where the only radical, and final one is to be found. It
has already removed some minor sores, aud is a specific for the
greatest. Of itself it requires no delay but is simply waiting for
skill to administer it. As with other specifics the difliculty will be
in cottinf the world to believe In it, but that cannot be done with-
out inviting public attention to it. As for indifference, opposition
and ridicule, which novel projects are almost sure to meet with,
they never yet prevented the success of aught that deserved it ;
and in the present case they are lighter than air, since it is nature
herself that is the projector.
It was remarked on a previous page that for the work given to
man diverse forces are provided. It is to them we are now to refer.
They are comprised in two general divisions, Living and In
animate, each consisting of two distinct varieties. The first of
human and animal forces ; the second of forces excited by nature,
as running water, and such as are artificially awakened, as steam,
explosive compounds, &e.
As might have been expected, there is a regular order in the
realization of these forces. Differing in forms, intensities, and
applications, such only can be used as are suited to the condition
men are in as regards mental and material progress. In the early
stages of society the simplest only can be managed. Savages can
do nothing with steam, or semi-savages with cognate first movers.
It was necessary that man should begin the viorls. with his own
force, that by the exercise of it he might be prepared to employ
others. Thus human labor preceded that of animals, their employment
suggested the taking advantage of fluid currents, and they opened the
way to the evolution of forces from matter at rest. Little stretch
of thought was necessary to make an animal drag a load after him,
or to bear another on his back; somewhat more to adapt vanes to

FOK SCPERSEDESG SLAVERY. 21
wind and running water, and turning to account systems of revolving
levers, but had the motive powers stopped there, the modern v.'orld
had not advanced beyond the ancient one. For to keep moving,
another class was indispensable, consisting of such as are not
limited to time and place, such as man can call up for himself
wherever and whenever he pleases, and excite, and extinguish at
his will.
Living motors are the poorest; insensible ones, artificially ex
cited, the last and the best. The former are delicate, easily de
ranged, require stated and oft recurring periods of rest, are limited
in their powers of endurance, and the amount of work they can do,
while the latter are in these several respects- the reverse. With
living forces man passes his novitiate, with these he fairly enters
on the great work before him, no longer depending on those dis
closed by nature, but taught by her now to find out others for him
self. Few have yet been evolved, but judging of the rest by what tivo
in their veriest infancy have done, who can anticipate the epochs
which practical science is destined to open I So much of living
force has been already replaced by one of them — steam — that with
it, the progress of civilization would not now be retarded were all
our working animals to become extinct. It would be but the ex
change of one agent of labor for a better.
It is needless to allude to motive-agents that are destined to fol
low steam. Some are imperfectly developed, others perhaps not
suspected, while of those that are known, none are sufficiently sub
dued to be profitable, except electricity, which, as a messenger,
transmits thought with a velocity bordering on volition, and which
acts as a gilder and plater of the metals, a multiplier of engravings,
medallions and the most delicate gems of ancient and modern art.
Should it become tamed into a common working force, it will per
form functions for which steam is imperfectly adapted. No one
force can do every thing.

•2 'J FORCES PROVIDED BY NATURE
Is it asked — by what means are new motors to be discovered ?
By consulting nature with whom they all are. With her fervent
worshippers she has no secrets. With them she is as explicit on
tlie development of physical power — occult and mysterious .^s it
may seem — as on anything else. It is from her we learn not only
that bodily labor is the outlay of force, but that cul force is derived
directly or indirectly from heat ; animal force just as much as any
other. Hence it is, that whatever may be the temperature of the
media in which living creatures dwell, they are furnished with ap
paratus for generating a higher one within themselves, for the pur-
j)ose of operating their organs of motion ; and, as in our motive
engines, the heat Is generated iu parts specially designed for it —
that Is, the food-consuming apparatus is confined, in each species,
to one locality, whence the force is transmitted to the colder ex
tremities. The universality of heat as the source of physical power is con
firmed by every natural and by every artificial motor. We know
not one of the former which does not expire when its heat evolving
organs have ceased to act, nor one of t'ne latter that does not be
come helpless as a corpse under the like circumstances. In both
cases the most active and powerful consume the most fuel. All
food is fuel ; the mode of consuming it being, as might be supposed,
different in living than in insensitive motors. Does not the cno'i-
neer stop a locomotive to take in wood .and water for the same
reason that you stop to bait your horse, or to dine when the streno-th
of your previous meal is expended.
Force, then, being derived from heat, the all Important inquiry
is, What are our sources of heat ? The .answer should, in some de
gree, make manifest the intentions of the Creator in the constitution
and working of OUT orb — and it does. The chief sources are the
earth's forests and her coal-fields. The latter are to be found in all
lands and are utterly inexhaustible. So much so, that could the
imagination reach a period in the future sufficiently reraote to o-Ive
time for the consumption of the present stock, another would even

FOR SUPERSEDING SLAVERY. 23
then have been matured. We have therefore, no room to- doubt
that this mineral is ordained to be a chief if not the chief agent of
industrial forces ; and may we not add, through periods of time
commensurate with those that were required for its preparation and
stowage. Does not this explain to us why a succession of geological epochs
was employed in elaborating it in various qualities, laying it up in
separate strata, preserving it unmixed with foreign matters, and
providing for its being pushed up within human reach as human
wants might require it: — ^because of its paramount importance to
man through the whole of his career.
The coal trade of the world ia scarcely begun, but even now the
mineral may serve to indicate the condition of nations. Great .Brit
ain Is counted the richest, and she has writers who assert that the
true source of her wealth is her coal. It is unnecessary to say that
compared with other coal-producing countries, she ranks the first
in the quantity she mines. She now raises 75,000,000 of tons an
nually, of which about one-tenth only she exports. Her coal forma
tions occupy an area of 11,859 square miles. Belgmm, in 1856,
raised 8,409,330 tons. France consumed less than thirteen mil
lions, of which five millions were imported. Prussia raised four
millions, Austria less than one million, and Spain, thouo-k possessin"-
3,408 square miles of coal lands, r;iised scarcely any.
What relation there is between the rising power of the people of
the United States and the progress of their coal trade, may be sur
mised from the following table of quantities extracted, chiefly from
the Pennsylvania mines.
1820 (first year of mining) 365 tons.
1825 - - - 60,-538 "
1830 - 132,826 "
1835 - 610,727 "
1840 - - 1,027,241 "
1845 - - - 2,143,530 "
1850 - - - . 3,736,184 -
1855 - - - 7,56.5,980 "

2i FORCES PROVIDED BY NATtTKE
The coal crop of the United States for the year 1858 including
bitumens and all other varieties was estimated at 14,685,820 tons.
What it has got to do on this part of the earth may be rudely
guessed at, from the fact that while its deposits in Great Britian,
Spain, France, and Belgium, do not exceed, in the aggregate,
twenty thousand square miles, its area within the United States—
of course saying nothing of Mexico on the South, and Canada and
Nova Scotia on the North — is already estimated at tico hundred
thoiL^and square m.iles. A national inheritance of inconceivable
wealth aud power.
Of the coal deposits in Eussia, Poland, Denmark and Sweden
we knov/ but little, and still less of those of India, China, and other
parts of Asia, of those of Japan, New Zealand, South America,
Africa, and Australia.
Of the earth's cargo not more than broken samples have yet been
withdrawn, and only a few of them. When she " breaks bulk" the
power of the world will be recognized in coal and its science in
iron. The value of the revelation-^that all forces are resolvable into
inorganic elements and obtainable in unlimited quanities — who can
estimate! To it is to be ascribed the start which civilization has
taken in the present century, and to it primarily will be due all
future progress. It has opened to our species a series of acquisitions
whose benefits no language oan over-rate. It shows us that we have
the power and the means of doing the world's work, without oppres-
.sing our own species or the tribes below us, since the demands for in
dustrial labor, however great, are to be met in all coming times, not
by Cjulverlng flesh and fibre, but by insensible substances — ^by the
cheapest and most common— peat, turf, coal, wood and other
fuels. But for this wonderful f*id most beneficent provision
negroes would be captured aud sold in greater numbers than ever.
There would be no end to their enthralment.
Not only does the ultimate extinction of human slavery depend

FOE SUPERSEDING SLAVERY. 23
on it, but thjs complete subjugation of the earth and the application of
all its resources to human happiness.
To make manifest this glorious truth to other races is amou"- the
great duties of the leading race.
We perceive then that Nature, so much ignored on account of
her slow and silent movements, has a potent voice in this matter of
Slavery, and speaks on it, as she has often spoken, with more effect
from the Factory than from the Halls of Legislation. Notwith
standing our political and civil machinery, it is she that shapes our
ends, bend and rough-hew them as we will. Whatever other rem
edies may be prescribed, it will be found that as one body can only
be moved by another, an old motor can only be displaced by a new
one, equally effective and economical.
For every ill there is a remedy, but it does not always coms
from the quarter expected. The great social changes wrought in
modern times is not the result of the sagacity and movements of
statesmen — ^not a fraction of them. Legislators had no more to do
with starting them than with the production of rain or snow. They
knew not the cause till the effects loomed up before them, and then
it seemed inexplicable from ita apparent insignificance. And what
is it that has made itself felt so beneficially over every part of the
civilized world ? Humiliating to the pride and power of rulers, it;
was nothing more than a common property of a common substance,-
turned to a new purpose — the simple eiqmnsion of arpieoxis vapor.
From the brevity of life, we are naturally impatient under Polit
ical pressures, and seek their immediate removal, but the habits of
races and nations, as respects labor, are not to be changed in a day.
Thoroughly to employ one common force, and successfully intro
duce another, has comprised periods so great as can only be counted
in the life of the species. What ages transpired before the white
m.in enslaved black ones, we know not, nor how many intervened
before quadrupeds were tamed and made to labor for hun, nor how
vast the intervals before wind and movitig water were pressed into
tis service. But this we know, that we live in a transition age —

26 FORCES PROVIDED EY NATURE
at the beginning of an epoch that will bo over memorable for tho
evolution of productive forces from inert matter— »of forces designed
to meet deficiencies of preceding ones, and by their extension to
Jlvor.je departments of labor, gradually to contract the areas and
extinguish the evils of slavery.
As every one knows, the first of these yet mastered is steatn. It
is unnecessary to detail here what social, civil, and even mental
and moral results it has brought forth in little more than half a
century, nor with what accelerated power It is adding to them.
There is scarcely a department of the arts into which it has not been
introduced, and positively not one in which its influence is not
felt. It has changed the policy of nations, and is stimulating,
beyond all precedent, their growth and prosperity. The hoisting
poiver for bringing up the materials stored in the earth's cellars,
and the chief working agent on her surface, its labors are, R,ppar-
ently, to be interminable, if not illimitable. It is now doing three,
if not four, times more work than the manual force ofthe whole
human family can do ; and, in a century or two, will, in all proba
bility, be doing a hundred times more. Fresh applications of it are
being constantly projected. It has passed from the factory into
the highways ; aud, at the present writing, attempts are making to
take it into the prairies — to make it a general field-laborer — to plow
and sow, as well as thresh, and bolt, and grind. It already gins
cotton, besides spinning and weaving it ; nor is there any insuper
able obstacle to its planting, and hoeing, and picking it, or some
thing equivalent to picking it. It expresses- the juice from the
.sugar-cane ; why not cultivate and reap it? The cereals, also, as
well as the ordinary grasses ? Kindred difficulties now overcome,
appeared equally serious before they were conquered. Nothing is
¦wanting but a proper combination of mechanical skill ; and, when
that is realized, slavery dies, and dies amid the hosannas of both
pro and anti-slavery men.
Let us repeat. The proposition is, that unlimited amounts of
force are to be drawn out of inert matter, and that mechanical ar-

FOii SUl'EESiCDING SLAVEEV. 27
raugeiuents for applying them to the exhaustive labors of ilavcs,
are alone wanting to put an end to the slave trade. This h Na
ture's plan, and therefore effectual, without being violent; mild,
progressive, and conservative, injurious to no class, but advanta
geous to all interests. In it, the morals of slavery are reversed.
The forces are without feeling, and the greater amount of work got
out of them, the nearer we fulfil the intentions of the Croatur res
pecting them. Human labor becomes improved in its character,
and reduced in intensity or amount to what is essential to bodily
health and mental vigor. Associated with intelligence, it becomes
employed iu the direction of other forces. The slave becomes au
overseer. There is then hope for the negro. His race is no"t destined to re
main uninformed serfs. It is well to know that the day of his re
demption will come, and better still, that it lies within our power to
accelerate its coming ; for though the Creator has provided the
means, their employment is left to ourselves. Only, lot us not
complain that, that which He, for the wisest purposes and the best
interests of our species, has made progressive, is not instantaneous.
Pv,aees and nations are what their agents of labor make them.—
Savages are such because they use no power but their own, while
the social, mental and moral habits improve as other forces are
called in. The ancient world arrived at certain stages of progress
and then stopped, because the forces in use could carry it no fur
ther. Neither the wisdom of Egypt, philosophy of India, ingenuity
of Greece, nor the energy of Home could urge it onward. In this
respect the morals of Confucius, the teachings of Pythagoras, and
the inspirations of the prophets alike failed.
An advance has now taken place, exceeding all previous move
ments, and why ? Because the impulse has come from forces sur
passing in energy and effect the old ones ; and to them the improved
and improving condition of the world, morally as well -as physically,
is due. Although all the gifts of nature and art are the products of
physical forces, mechanical science is not yet recognized as the

tib FORCES PROVIDED BY NATURE
great thing that it is. The principle or passion that inclines each
class to magnify its importance may have its uses, but statesmen,
lavi'vers, theologians, physicians, philosopher.s, merchants, farmers
and others are unwittingly being borne forward as one body by
engineers. The fundamental law by which man rises in the scale of being as
he adds to his stock of forces has not yet presented itself in its full
bearings, to writers on either ethics or physics. Thoy admit force,
in a general way, to be of importance, but they treat it as an adjunct,
or an ordinary element, rather than the principal one of human ele
vation. If t'nere were a deep, conviction that it is the essence of
material acquisitions — that all others are products of it — would
there not be more said and written about it ? How few are they
who teach that the forces constitute- the acts in the world's great
drama, and their applications the scenes into which the acts are di
vided—that they expand as human wants expand, and are ordained
to appear in a natural sequence, by which each opens the way for its
successor — ^that there is progress in the forces as well as in the
products of the forces.
But if new forces are to supersede negro labor, vjhe)-e 9X& they
first to be drilled into it ? The world at larse is far from beincr
prepared for the change, and may not be for ages, still there are
places that seem nearly if not quite ready for it, and of them our
own country is- the most promising. The conflicts of opinion on
slavery that have agitated and keep agitating the Union tend, and
are perhaps necessary, to clear the way for it. Here are the induce
ments, the means and the men— the science and the skill— to devise
the plans, with the best of opportunities to improve and mature them.
It is of cours.H admitted that a change in old established systems of
labor can only be a matter of time, but it has begun with us. It
has even progressed so far as to relieve white and black men from
some of the severest of predial labors.
Doubtless there are those who will deride the proposed solution
of the great social and political problem as visionary; but of the

FOR SUPERSEDmO SLAVEEY. 29
marked changes that have, within half a century, come over the
world which did they perceive ere they saw and felt it in its effects.
Not a fuw will question the practicability of applying portable ex
pansive forces to the extent advocated. Alleged ' difficulties ' will
m;ike them hesitate. Difficulties I Why the greatest are not to be
compared to many that have been overcome in our times, iu gas-
lighting, railroads, steamships and carriages, steam presses, ploughs,
reapers and looms, in the telegraph,. tubular bridges, photography
and other matters, down to the sewing machine. Difficulties ! — .
"Why, nothing great can be produced without them. Not even great
men. Tell practical men of high and firm purpose, that progress is
about ended in the substitution of inorganic forces for muscular
power and they will laugh you to scorn. They will tell you, and
tell you truly, that the great work is barely begun.
It may be objected that the substitution implies a change for
which society in slave States is not prepared and an advance in the
arts not attained. Suppose this conceded, is it less a duty to look
forward on this subject than on others less important ? When
streaks of dawn break through the monotony of a long night of
gloom, we know sun-rise is near ; and shall we not hail as harbin
gers of day discoveries that Itave dispersed clouds which for ages
have hung over the social sky.
Others again may think the change involves not only a 'higher
law' but anticipates the highest and last one. They are right.
Wherever slavery is rendered commercially impossible by the
superior economy and efficiency of inanimate forces, there the
ultimate law has begun to prevail. But then, say they, when once
we enter upon such a state of things progress must bo at an end.
Assuredly not. It would be but the commencement of a series of
developments that require an eternity to perfect and exhaust. As
regards the Day of Science and Discovery, whatever self-love may
suggest to the contrary, we only live in the first blush of the
inorning. Most certain it is-that no amount of living power cau meet the

30 FORCEi PROVIDED BY NATURE
demand for productive labor which science and the arts now" require,
iio"- can the earth raise slaves eno-ugh to meet Incoiuing requisitions.
The forces referred to, can alone do that. j\[ay we not then sug
gest to friends of the negro the forraation of Societies f err promoting
tJtc ajiplication of inanimate forces to the raising and reaping staple
¦products of tropica.1 and semi-traj/tcal regions. There would be
nothing impracticable in the project, since it is only to extend to
the field a part of what has already been effected in the factory.
And surely, discussion and the offer of suitable premiums, would
tend to hasten the accomplishment of an object honorable to man in
his highest estate. It is impossible to name a project in which
good men of all creeds, classes, and professions can more hopefully
unite to further the be?t interests of humanity than this ; or one by
which governments can make larger amends for the miseries that
have flowed from the dissipation of wealth and destruction of life
in wars.
Is there any risk in asserting, that if a moiety of the influence
nnd money expended bv England and America during the last ten
years for suppressing the Slave Trade, had been devoted to the
extension of inorganic forces to slave labor, the market prices of
negroes in the United States had now been reduced to African
standards, and a fruitful element of National strife rendered in
noxious, if not annihilated ?
As respects emancipation, nature's policy is different from ours..
With her, release from servile toil is obtained, not by getting rid
of the work but by doing more of it and doing it better. Any sy.s-
teni ditrerent from this she ignores. But though 'more work ' is
hor motto, there is nothing cruel or unkind in it, but the contrary,
since the requisite forces are provided. In them we have her par
able of the Talents. Labor — free, cheerful, enlightened labor is
forever to be the root and spring of human advancement. One
race cannot do the work of another. The highest must do its own
to maintain its position, and hence it is that in no factory is the
purport of assembling employes more clearly implied or expressed

FOK SOPEESEDING SLAVE.RT.

31

than by nature in this mundane establishment. ' Work,' ' work,' is
labeled on every department. All her rules and regulations are
based upon it, nor will she listen a moment to dispensing with it,
or to its slightest diminution- — no, not to abate human .'sufi'eriag.
' Work ' then is never to cease, but to swell until ali the eart'n'.^
forces are employed in improving the character and condition of
every race ; how beautiful the system, and benign, thataecomplishe.s
this with diminished demands on human bones and muscles by call
ing into activity the noble forees of the mind — a system which
acknowledges no limits to labor saving devices, to the refinements
of labor, nor to the intellectual growth .of the laborers.
For progress, untrammeled and unbounded power is required,
and we may have it in the inorganic forces. As they become mul
tiplied, slaves will disappear from our plantations, for a piece of
fuel costing less than the daily food of a negro will do more work
in a day than several negroes. And as all people will ultiraately
have them, inducements to enslave negroes will finally pass away.
The honorable task of introducing them to our species has been
assigned to our race. Through them we are to direct the on-w;ird
movements of the world. Lot us, therefore, cast off dependence on
old routines of labor and cherish the increase of laborers whose
nerves and sinews are of iron. To skill and perseverance there is
nothing impossible in this, and glory enough awaits those who take
the lead in it.
Christians in theory, we are too often pagans in practice. Like
him who cried on a God to drag his wagon out of the mire, we in
voke the spiritual to bring about that which must come from the
material. Like him we find it easier to believe than to labor, and
like him we are doomed to experience that faith -without works is
nought. An increase of labor, or agents of labor will forever be in
dispensable to progressive civilization, and for it recourse must be
had, not to ethical but to mechanical science ; to nature not to
Grace. Religion and morals have their appropriate .spheres of
action. They foster the virtues, but what virtue can harden steel.

32 FORCES PROVIDED BY NATURE,.- ETC.
increase the effect of a reaper, diminish friction, or add. to the. speed
ofa steamer ? - They enforce industry bub touch not the forces of
industry. They may soften the hearts- of task-masters, but to. rely
on them to- relieve groaning masses-from- ' hard bondage in mortar
and bricks, and all manner of service in the field '- is to indulge- in
desperate andhopeless expectations. ,; .- 1 . -j.. - , .-¦; .. ..
Let those then, who afflict themselves and harass others because of
an evil they cannot remove, and whose end they see not, .enlarge the-
circles of their- thoughts and consider it in the light- here- contemp
lated, and they will no longer be in doubt of what . is ordained to
corae to pass. They will learn what the means provided by nature
for its extinction are, and become persuaded that without them; no .
amount of moral power can- bring- about what they desire. - -They
will loo'ii out for .' signs ' of emancipation different from, those they
have been accustomed to dwell on, and acknowledge the- agency of
physical science to hasten its approach— -and in- so doing; they will
find themselves co-workers with- nature, and therefore-. with God..,^,

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