第111章

Steam has there changed a voyage of days, or weeks, into one of less than sixteen hours.(76)The circumstances leading on to the invention of steam land carriage, may also be noted as exemplative of this view of the subject.There were first simply railroads, to facilitate heavy drafts for short distances, from coal mines; then there was a more general use of them in all heavy drafts; finally, there was the general application of steam, as the power to effect transport of all sorts, and with all velocities, along the smooth surface they afforded.All that was wanted for the last step was, that the mechanism should be rendered less heavy and cumbersome, and, it may be remarked, so great confidence had been generated of the power of the inventive faculty, that the undertaking was commenced with full assurance that it would accomplish the desired improvement, although the manner how was not known.The result showed that the confidence was not misplaced.

Thus, such are the steps by which invention advances, that it would seem, had there been no country like Great Britain, the steam engine might not yet bare been produced; had there been none like North America, steam navigation might not yet have been practised; and again, had not Great Britain existed, metal railways and steam carriage might have been still only in the category of possibilities.

The invention of printing has often been cited as one of the most important of modern times.The steps by which it advanced were also of that gradual and easy nature, one leading on to another, and surrounding circumstances prompting to essay the ascent, as to take away all admiration of its progress, were it not that the constitution of man's nature renders the passing of any individual, coolly and deliberately, the least out of the circle of imitation, very often a proof of the strongest powers of mind.There was first the stamping with signets; then the transfer of this initial art, to stamping, instead of painting, playing cards; then the existence of a great and unceasing demand for one book, the Bible, the excessive cost of transcription, and the transfer of the art of stamping cards to stamping pages, first of the sacred volume, and afterwards of others; lastly, there was the passage of another art, that of casting dies for coining, to facilitating the formation of metallic types.(77) The art, thus perfected, was disseminated by the tyranny of a petty prince.(78)The art which has most immediate connexion with the increase of wealth, the business of banking, is itself in some measure illustrative of the influence of change in producing improvements in all arts.It commenced in countries where exchanges for large amounts were numerous.Venice, Florence, Genoa, Amsterdam, the great marts of commerce, were the first banking communities.

In them, however, its operations were confined to transfers of specie, and the benefits derived from them consisted chiefly in security given, and trouble avoided.It passed, at last, into countries where there were comparatively few actual exchanges, and where, in order to effect the passage, invention was obliged to develops its capacities for facilitating, and thus exciting and increasing exchanges.The following extract from the Wealth of Nations will render this apparent.

"The commerce of Scotland, which at present is not very great, was still more inconsiderable when the two first banking companies were established;and those companies would have had but little trade, had they confined their business to the discounting of bills of exchange.They invented, therefore, another method of issuing their promissory notes; by granting what they called cash accounts, that is, by giving credit to the extent of a certain sum, (two or three thousand pounds for example), to any individual who could procure two persons of undoubted credit and good landed estate to become surety for him, that whatever money should be advanced to him, within the sum for which the credit had been given, should be repaid upon demand, together with the legal interest.Credits of this kind are, I believe, commonly granted by banks and bankers in all different parts of the world.

But the easy terms upon which the Scotch banking companies accept of repayment are, so far as I know, peculiar to them, and have perhaps been the principal cause, both of the great trade of those companies, and of the benefit which the country has received from it."If we may judge of the progress of an art from its general success, the transfer of the business of banking to Scotland would furnish another proof of the benefits accruing to arts themselves, from their passages from country to country.No where has banking been productive of more acknowledged advantages, and no where have the evils occasionally attendant on it been fewer.(79)As also illustrative of the subject, I may call the attention of the reader to a fact often noted, -- the small progress of the aborigines of the new world in art, when compared with that attained by the inhabitants of the old.

If we are to search for natural causes of the phenomenon, in my opinion we may find them, in the greater extent of continent in the eastern than in the western hemisphere, and, especially, of continent lying under the equatorial regions, the birth place in both of the arts they possessed.

This extent of country, and diversity of materials, must have increased very much the chance of discovery in the arts, and tended greatly, on the principles we have just been considering, to push forward their improvement.