of the penman to supply. You may accordingly trace the growth, which produced this invention, from the first symbolic painting of thought on rock or tree, by roving savage, to the mnemonic hieroglyphics inscribed on pyramid and temple; then to characters representing words; then to those respresenting syllables; till the very element of the human voice at last take representative form in the alphabet. In this form it branches forth beyond the sacerdotal caste, and, like the banyan tree, repeats itself by striking its far-reaching branches into fresh soil. It passes from the Egyptian into the Phonician, thence into the stronger intellectual soil of Grecce; it multiplies itself throughout the Roman empire, at every repetition making still further demands upon the labors of the hand; it survives the middle ages, that its far-extending root and branch might draw increased vigor from the northern mind, and that nether mass of humanity, which is at length thrown open to more genial influences; and then it is, that this stupendous growth of all time puts forth, as its last fruit, this wonder-working art of printing. Readers had multiplied with the revival of ancient learning, with the progress of emancipation, with the love of the marvelous in romance, and the mysterious in religion, and demands for copies of great works, and especially for such as were sacred, or were so esteemed, could be satisfied in no way but by the labor-saving machinery of the press.

Now the military art must date its rude origin at the same distant epoch. It must have grown by force of the same law of suggestion, and therefore must have almost necessarily produced its corresponding invention of gunpowder, during the same century. Thus it was that one and the same law of progress conspired to perfect these two grand inventions at about the same time. Twin sovereigns, the one to commence its labors in the world of mind, the other in the world of

matter.

And what were the effects of the art of printing, on social and political institutions? Did it take law from the human legislator, or give him law? Let us see.

It created, for the first time in history, what may be called a public mind. Cabined and cribbed though it was, within the forms of an age of despotism and bigotry, that mind grew and expanded, till it felt the pressure of those forms as obstructions to its growth. It then reformed the legislator himself, and through him cast off its obstructions, and thereupon expanded, with a broader liberty, into a mightier stature.

This mind thus shaped itself, not upon general speculative ideas, but upon natural tendencies and habits of thought, coming from the

hoary past, and common to all, and to which the inspiring influence of the press now gave an all-pervasive life. Society was thus made to feel its existence through its organized entirety through all its institutions and interests; and on this regenerated feeling, common to all, was established a true sovereignty of public opinion. Do not misunderstand me. When I speak of public opinion, I do not mean the wild impulse of minority or majority; I do not mean popular agitation or effervescence. I do not mean a state of mind indicated by mass meetings, barbecues, and the like. These may indicate a feverish state of the public mind, but they indicate no public opinion. On the contrary, they show that public opinion on the given subject is not yet formed. But I mean that opinion which is a natural, spontaneous growth, or proceeding from the organized whole; which is therefore in accordance with the political institutions, established interests, and the general moral and religious sense of a community. Until these are endangered, threatened or disturbed, public opinion rests unmoved, and heeds not the angry discussions that are going on among the overheated partizans of the day.

If, therefore, you would know what public opinion is, do not look to a party press that is doing what it can to draw forth an opinion favorable to the cause which it advocates, but look to the established interests, the intellectual character, and the moral and religious sense of the people, which the whole press, in all the variety of its departments, has contributed to form, and from them estimate what the common judgment, in the last result, must be.

Public opinion, in our country, indulges in no abstract speculations: it leaves them to the dreams of the theorist. In the full enjoyment of its own unobstructed freedom, it is never clamorous, it is never violent. It moves only on great occasions, and under the pressure of some stern necessity; but, when it does move, it is irresistible; it bears down all opposition before it. The demagogue frequently attempts to imitate the incipient stages of this movement, by an artificial agitation of the masses. Yet his imposture is sure to be detected in the end, by the fraudful expedients to which he resorts in order to sustain that continued excitement in which alone he can live. Public opinion neither countenances such expedients, nor desires the agitation which they provoke. To it, all agitation is incidental, and results from extraneous causes, or from its partial manifestations. Sovereign in itself, it seeks not the aid of violently excited feeling, and when it unequivocally manifests itself, all agitation ceases, and the stream of events rolls quietly on.

It is when the course of the waters is obstructed, and they are accumulating behind the obstruction, that this artificial, this counterfeit agitation begins. It is then that every monstrous thing, little and great, which peoples the flood, swells into unnatural dimensions, and each, from the small fry to the leviathan,

Hugest that swims the ocean stream,

creates for itself its particular whirlpool and circle of bubble and foam, deceiving the inconsiderate spectator into the belief that all this is the agitation of the onward rolling flood, the indication of the natural tendency and pressure of the mighty mass. Yet let but the

master-mind, which alone is competent to view the entirety ab extra, open the sluice-way, or the accumulating wave break the obstruction down, and the tide rolls tranquilly on, swallowing up in its prevailing current, whirlpool, bubble and foam, and little monster and great, and bearing them all quietly off to the ocean of eternal oblivion.

This is public opinion; the gravitation of the general mass of mind through all its institutions and interest towards its eternal centre; and when it so gravitates, it is always right; but this artificial agitation is generally wholly individual, and when it is such, it is always wrong; since its object, whatever may be the pretext, is wholly selfish. It is only when the agitation is natural, spontaneous, and comes from an effort to express the common wants and desires of a people, and is conducted with a religious reverence for public morals, for good order, and all truth, that it is ever the true harbinger of a genuine and enduring public opinion. A public opinion, based upon the generally received ideas of morality, religion, and law, doth in fact constitute the common conscience of a people; and it is this conscience which in every great and trying emergency makes heroes or cowards of us all, as we may chance to be right or wrong.

It was a deep religious and moral feeling of this sort, for the first time brought into general activity by the diffusion of the Scriptures through the agency of the Press, which in the sixteenth century commenced and carried on the great work of religious reformation. The obstructions to its efforts were mountainous, and a deep and wide searching agitation went before it, often mingling error with truth. It touched, it moved that principle which lies beneath the deepest foundations of all that is human, and at once all social institutions were agitated as by an earthquake. It taught the human to give place to the divine. It dashed government against government, institution against institution, man against man; and urged on that series

of religious revolutions, which for ages shook all Europe to its centre. It passed from religion into philosophy; it took form in politics; it produced its consequences in this country; it exploded, with most murderous effect, the combustible monarchy of France, and is to this day, with almost undiminished energy, passing down its tremulous agitations through the present into the boundless future. It changed the aspect of christendom; it established Protestantism and Protestant states, and reformed Romanism itself.

Nobody can doubt that all these changes were the necessary results of the discovery of the art of printing. They date from the commencement of the reformation; but the reformation could not have succeeded except by the aid of this art. Before this discovery, it had been repeatedly attempted both in church and out of church, and the attempts had failed; but after this discovery, it was attempted by a poor obscure monk in Germany, and the attempt did not fail. It began in the social mind, and extended itself, after much agitation, by a regular and orderly process, through the legitimate legislation of each community, out into state and church.

The creation of means by which the common mind, in every country of christendom, may in an orderly manner produce every desirable and necessary change in government, is one of the important results of this discovery; but its general social results have been no less important.

Let us go back, if we can, to the middle of the fourteenth century. Let us place ourselves in the bosom of that country whence all our political and social institutions are directly or indirectly derived; nay, from which all our ideas of legal right and duty, of liberty and law, proceed; and now, as in the midst of that century, let us see what the condition of the common mind is without the aid of this art. The first thing, then, that must strike our attention, is the general apathy and indifference of the mass around us, as to all matters of general, social and political importance. There is no press, there are no newspapers, no periodicals, political, religious, literary or scientific. In the place of the light which should come from these sources on the common mind, a profound darkness prevails, beneath which, all thought and action still rest in primeval slumber. But this is not all; there are no books in circulation or use, save those few that are transcribed on parchment by the slow and tedious operations of the

If we enter their public libraries, the precious manuscripts are chained to the tables, or are guarded with the vigilance of armed sentinels. If we enter their schools, the child is learning his alphabet from

a written scroll furnished him by his master. What a mass of ignorance; aye, and of necessary bondage! How eagerly the million multitudes. look up to the learned few for light and guidance! With what intensity of attention do they hang on the utterance of their lips, and how carefully do they treasure up, in their memories of iron, the oracles that fall on their ears! Ah! these are days when it well behoves the learned to take heed what they say. They are rulers of necessity, if not of choice, and their words are law; and well may they subject themselves to some general rules of thought and speech, and become a corporate community, sacerdotal or other, that the masses may take organization beneath them. Well is it for humanity and human progress that they have this absolute masterdom, and can hold, in unqualified subjection, the blind passions and terrible energies that are slumbering under them! Now let us return to this our day and generation, and

What a change! The press is pouring forth its torrents of truth or falsehood; the land is whitened with its daily sheets; the labors of a whole literary life may be purchased by an hour's labor of the mechanic; reading is the pastime of man, woman, and child, of prince and peasant; and strange voices, laden with strange thoughts, come thick on the classic ear, from cottage, and garret, and cellar. Where is that awful intensity of attention, that necessary and salutary subjection of the masses to the learned few? Gone! gone never to return! Every individual has become an original centre of thought; and thought is every where tending to clash with thought, and action with action. What is it that preserves order in the midst of all this tendency to anarchy? Why, it is done by that public opinion which subsists from the organized whole, and which the press itself has created. It is that public opinion, which, by its mere vis inertia, sustains the law, and holds the struggling demon of discord down. It takes the place of the learned of old; and how important it is that its genuine authority should be sustained, and that no demagogue or insane enthusiast should be permitted to impose on the world its counterfeit !

This invention came not from legislation, but on the contrary, from the independent progress of science and art. Unaided by human policy, it organized for itself an empire within the privacy of the human mind; and, gradually extending its dominion from spirit outward into matter, brought human legislation, at last, to follow reluctantly in the steps of its progress. And when, at length, the old world became too limited for the intellectual growth which it had generated, or ancient institutions so incorporated with the life of nations as not