onizing of antagonistic forces, the combination of the
most abstruse details, fitted to the remotest exigencies, and working
just as the inventive mind meant it should, and just as it was set
a-going, as if that mind were presiding over it, were in it, though it
is now far distant, or has vanished from the earth. That mind is
immortal! that nature, which is common to all men, transcends any shape
of matter and is superior to mechanism. And it may be necessary to say
this, necessary to say that man, who is helped by machinery, is
_separate_ from it. It is mind that is thus involved with matter. The
spirit of a living creature that is in the wheels.

It may be necessary to say this, my friends, and to say it frequently,
lest the vast mechanical achievements of our time seduce us into a mere
mechanical life. I do not think that the deepest question is, whether
machinery will multiply to such an extent as to snatch the bread from
the mouths of living men; but whether men, with all the possibilities of
their nature, will not become absorbed in that which supplies them with
bread alone? I have just expressed my admiration for the genius of the
great inventor. Nor can I honor too highly the faithful and industrious
mechanic--the man who fills up his chink in the great economy by
patiently using his hammer or his wheel. For, he _does_ something. If he
only sews a welt, or planes a knot, he helps build up the solid pyramid
of this world's welfare. While there are those who, exhibiting but
little use while living, might, if embalmed, serve the same purpose as
those forms of ape and ibis _inside_ the Egyptian caverns--serve to
illustrate the shapes and idolatries of human conceit. At any rate,
there is no doubt of the essential nobility of that man who pours into
life the honest vigor of his toil, over those who compose this feathery
foam of fashion that sweeps along Broadway; who consider the insignia of
honor to consist in wealth and indolence; and who, ignoring the family
history, paint coats of arms to cover up the leather aprons of their
grandfathers.

I shall not be misunderstood then, when, making a distinction in behalf
of the mechanic by profession, I say that no man should be a mere
mechanic in _soul_. In other words, no man should be bound up in a
routine of material ends and uses. He should not be a mechanic, working
exclusively in a dead system, but always the architect of a living
ideal. And surrounded, astonished,