STEAM-ENGINE. A machine wrought by the force obtained from the expansion and contraction of the steam of boiling water, and employed as a first moving power to other machines.
Among the innumerable contrivances of man to administer to the necessities and to augment the luxuries of life by mechanical agency, none certainly have proved more directly and extensively valuable than the steam-engine. Many great discoveries have been made, involving, indeed, a higher degree of intel lectual power in the cognizance of matter, its laws and properties, as well as a mote varied ingenuity as regards zwiatruction and mode of application ; the ship with her accessories, and the degree of knowledge required to conduct her throughout a distant and perilous voyage • the art of printing, with its loftier import to moral and mental culture ; the lens, by which we are enabled to soar into the boundless regions of space, or scrutinise the countless myriads of animated beings whose existence the unassisted vision had never else discovered; the curious and beautiful devices of analytic chemistry: these, and other fabri cations of man's inventive faculty, have been severally adduced as a grander exhibition of intelligence than the steam-engine of itself affords. But esti mating the importance of causes by their consequences, this invention must surely be regarded, if not as the very proudest, at least ae one of the proudest monuments of mental conception.
The stupendous effects which, during the short period of one century, have resulted from the application of this power, are striking attestations of the value of the labours employed in the invention. By the agency of steam, the seas are now navigated in defiance of winds and tides; the earth made to yield up in lavish abundance its metal and mineral treasures; vast marshes are drained, and land, before barren, rendered fruitful ; communities are brought into closer connexion with communities; fresh and inexhaustible sources of wealth and comfort are elicited ; new combinations of human industry and ingenuity brought into requisition • knowledge is widely scattered abroad by the extension of letters; distance is lessened by velocity of locomotion ; and time itself become more precious and invaluable. Thus, by infinitely enlarging the sphere
of useful action to whatsoever was useful before, and by diffusing among millions what previously was attainable only by the few, it has wrought a change of aspect in kingdoms, in commerce, and the individual relations of society, to an extent so wide, and in a time so brief, too, that the history of the world affords no parallel to it in influence. Personal loss and injury to a large class of industrious artificers may have arisen from the employment of steam power, (the substitution of any mechanical power for human labour is always partially attended with this calamity ;) yet, painful as the fact is, the amount of temporary suffering so caused must not be put into the scale with the pro digious advantages mankind in the mass will Inevitably derive from that sub stitution. The humane but short-sighted policy of those who object to the steam-engine on this account must not be permitted to cripple its advantages from a mere visionary apprehension of an evil supposed to be irremediable. The advantages of the few must always yield to the advantages of the many. But are means to requite the injury so produced beyond reach ?--they may not; perhaps, be readily seen, yet they nevertheless exist: invariably does some retributive good spring from what is at first considered an irreparable wrong, and the balance becomes again restored by other operations of the same cause which for a brief season partially disturbed it. If the materials which nature has supplied to engage the genius and industry of men were nearly used up, then indeed, there might be some ground for alarm ; but she is, and must ever continue to be, inexhaustible. Every improvement, every novelty in science or in art, is the fertile parent of new wants; new demands give birth to new supplies; and every advancing step taken in the endless field before us leads on to some fresh advantage once hidden from our view, requiring new energies and new labours, and amply compensating for the partial mischief such advances have occasioned.