MATERIAL PROGRESS OF THE CENTURY. An inventive Age Has wrought, if not with speed of magic, yet To most strange issues. WORDSWORTH. UNDER the impulse of the great discoveries and inventions of the eighteenth century, in particular the invention of the steam-engine and the discovery of the properties of electricity and galvanism, an immense momentum has been given to scientific investigation and to the application of new means and methods to the mechanic arts. With startling rapidity, one after another long-hidden secret has been wrested from nature, and fresh powers available for the use and benefit of man have been unlocked. In the number and serviceableness of its inventions and applied discoveries, the nineteenth century bids fair to exceed all its predecessors. And like as the West Indies had never been discovered if the use of the mariner's needle had not been first discovered, though the one be vast regions and the other a small motion; so it cannot be found strange if sciences be no farther discovered if the art itself of invention and discovery hath been passed over. - BACON. The introduction of noble inventions seems to hold by far the most excellent place among all human actions. And this was the judgment of antiquity, which attributed divine honors to inventors, but conferred only heroical honors upon those who deserved well in civil affairs, such as the founders of empires, legislators, and deliverers of their country. And whoever rightly considers it will find this a judicious custom in former ages, since the benefits of inventors may extend to all mankind, but civil benefits only to particular countries or seats of men; and these civil benefits seldom descend to more than a few ages, whereas inventions are perpetuated through the course of time. Besides, a state is seldom amended in its civil affairs without force and perturbation, whilst inventions spread their advantage without doing injury or causing disturbance. — LORD BACON. Soon shall thy arm, unconquered Steam! afar DARWIN, Botanic Garden, 1791. Were we required to characterize this age of ours by any single epithet, we should be tempted to call it, not an Heroical, Devotional, Philosophical, or Moral Age, but, above all others, the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of Machinery in every outward and inward sense of that word; the age which, with its whole undivided might, forwards, teaches, and practises the great art of adapting means to ends. CARLYLE. INDEX. ABBASSIDIAN CALIPHATE. Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, 400. CALIPHATE of. Abd-er-Rahman, 210. Acadia (Nova Scotia), settled, 395. Achaia, province of, 73, 79, 80. Eschylus, 21, 36. Etius defeats Attila, 168, 182, 183. Africa, Carthaginian possessions in, 57, Roman province of, 73, 77. 209. Alabama, 426. Alexander the Great, his conquests and Alexandria founded, 49. seat of learning and commerce, 57, 70, 71, 153. school of, 70, 71, 153. taken by the Saracens, 202. Alfred the Great, 232, 233. Alva, Duke of, 364, 365. America, discovery of, 328, 330-334. North, coast explored by Verraz- South, reached by Columbus, 316. Charles V., 351. and European settlements in, 394-396. 201. Antalcidas, Peace of, 42. Aquæ Sextiæ, battle, 84. Arabs, 4. See SARACENS and Moors. migration, 10. Belgium, new kingdom of, 425. insurrection of, 426. Belisarius, 193–195. Benedict, St., 197. Benedictines, order of, 197. Bible, Septuagint version, 58. Tyndale's New Testament, 342. Black death, 308, 309. Blenheim, battle of, 402. Blücher, 430. Asia, stationary character of civiliza- Bohemia, 237, 251. tion, 4-7. province of, 73. Assembly. See NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ABER, Mogul Empire of, 372. Bacon, Roger, 312. Baconian philosophy, 397. Boileau, 389. Bonaparte. See NAPOLEON. Boston Tea Party, 407. Brennus (fl. 390 B. C.), invasion of, 54. Roman conquest of, 117, 128. the Saxons begin to attack, 155. beginning of conversion to Chris- Saxon Heptarchy, 201. Bruges, 364. Buonaparte. See NAPOLEON. united to Germany, 251. duchy annexed to France, 315. See Byzantium, seat of empire, 138, 155, Bagdad, Caliphate of, 209, 215-218,281. CABOT, John, 331. Bajazet, 321. Balance of power, 352. Balboa discovers the Pacific, 342. Bank, the first public, 272. Bartholomew, St. See ST. BARTHOL- OMEW. Cæsar, Augustus. See AUGUStus. subdues the whole of Gaul, 92. ruler of the Roman world, 93-98. Cæsar, Julius, assassination of, 94, 95. | Christ, the birth of, 110, 114. Cæsar, Octavius. See AUGUSTUS. Calais, 315, 317. Calendar, regulation of, 88, 342. Caliphate of Bagdad. See Bagdad, Caliphate of Cordova. Cambyses, 10. Cannæ, battle of, 63-65. See CORDOVA, Cape of Good Hope, 329, 343, 344. Carlovingian dynasty, 218. Carolina. See NORTH CAROLINA and Clive, 422. Censor, office of, 12. Clovis, 167, 191. epitaph on, 336. Commerce, extension of, 343, 344. Congress of Vienna. See VIENNA, Connecticut settled, 396. Constance, Council of, 316. Peace of, 272. Constantine the Great, 160-163. makes Constantinople the seat of the first Christian emperor, 162. Central America, under Spanish rule, Constantinople, the seat of empire, 160- Châlons, battle of, 182, 183. pire, 209, 221, 223–230. 162, 195. besieged by the Saracens, 204, 214. recovered by the Greeks, 282. Charlemagne, his conquests and em- Constitution of Solon. See SOLON. coronation of, 223. Emperor of the West, 223-229. 221, 229, 230. Charles I., England. 379. Charles V., Age of. 350-353. Empire of, 341, 350-353. Charles Martel, 213, 214. Chazars, 191. China, character of civilization, 4-6. |