a tree exist in the most spacious garden, that, upon
examination, could be pronounced perfectly similar(19).

(19) See above, Essay 2.

The true question is not, whether any thing can be found that is new,
but whether the particulars in which any thing is new may not be so
minute and trifling, as scarcely to enter for any thing, into that
grand and comprehensive view of the whole, in which matters of obvious
insignificance are of no account.

But, if art and the invention of the human mind are exhaustless, science
is even more notoriously so. We stand but on the threshold of the
knowledge of nature, and of the various ways in which physical power may
be brought to operate for the accommodation of man. This is a business
that seems to be perpetually in progress; and, like the fall of bodies
by the power of gravitation, appears to gain in momentum, in proportion
as it advances to a greater distance from the point at which the impulse
was given. The discoveries which at no remote period have been made,
would, if prophesied of, have been laughed to scorn by the ignorant
sluggishness of former generations; and we are equally ready to regard
with incredulity the discoveries yet unmade, which will be familiar
to our posterity. Indeed every man of a capacious and liberal mind is
willing to admit, that the progress of human understanding in science,
which is now going on, is altogether without any limits that by the
most penetrating genius can be assigned. It is like a mighty river, that
flows on for ever and for ever, as far as the words, "for ever," can
have a meaning to the comprehension of mortals. The question that
remains is, our practicable improvement in literature and morals, and
here those persons who entertain a mean opinion of human nature, are
constantly ready to tell us that it will be found to amount to nothing.
However we may be continually improving in mechanical knowledge and
ingenuity, we are assured by this party, that we shall never surpass
what has already been done in poetry and literature, and, which is
still worse, that, however marvellous may be our future acquisitions in
science and the application of science, we shall be, as much as ever,
the creatures of that vanity, ostentation, opulence and the spirit of
exclusive accumulation, which has hitherto, in most countries (not in
all countries), generated the glaring inequality of property, and the
oppression of the many for the sake of pampering