"Creation and Destruction, now
Are wrestling for the regal world;
And one must conquer, one must bow,
Which side soever I am hurl'd.

"Behold! I wait upon thy breath
To make thee blest, or most accurst;
But should'st thou bid me reap for Death
His victims—Thou wilt be the first."

THE WORK OF THE WORLD.

WHO does the work of the world? We
have a faint suspicion that the "decisive
battles" which have had the strongest influence
upon the character of nations or the fortunes
of the human race, were not fought amid
shouts, needed no swords, and never killed
more than the few solitary stragglers who
have wasted life and fortune in pursuit of
knowledge. Often the truths, or facts,
pursued, appear so small, that the folks may say,
"No wonder their discovery goes unrewarded."
Of things, however, that concern the common
mind of man, no truth can possibly be small.
Setting aside the mere personal accidents
which can interest only the individual or his
immediate neighbours, every new fact is a
battle won. And very small facts—small we
are apt to call them—are the fruit of
intellectual battles, as decisive in the history of
man as Issus or Waterloo. The historic value
of a single battle we are apt enormously to
overrate, because it is too much the practice
to consider the human race in history not as
one whole, but as an assemblage of conflicting
interests.

We have our favourite nations and our
hated nations; our good and bad genii. When
a battle occurs, the good genius must overcome,
and we say, if things respond to our
desire, "O, it is well for us that those bad folks
were beaten, for had they been triumphant,
where should we all have been?" We ask that
question, feeling conscious of an answer; but
it is one to which no answer can be given.
Few races were more unpromising than the
Ugrians, those wild and ugly Asiatic savages,
whose deeds among the Scandinavian forests
gained for them a nursery immortality. Where
are the "Ogres" now? They won for
themselves ground in Europe, and, settling there,
have become handsome in person, generous in
mind, and are known to us in England as a
kindred people, the Magyars of Hungary.
Then, again, after all, the highest purpose of
a battle is to preserve the predominance of an
advanced over a backward civilisation. If
there be any apology for wars beyond the one
just plea of self-defence, it is because the
soldier preserves that which the scientific man
produces. Now we have certainly a Koh-i-
noor but we are apt to see more of the cage
than of the diamond.

An illustration lies close at our hand, which
may be found enlarged upon in Liebig's
Letters. Both soap and glass are absolute
necessaries in a civilised community; for the
manufacture of both, soda is necessary. On account
of both these articles, much capital has for a
long time been invested. The wealth and
refinement of a nation may be fairly tested
by the extent to which it considers cleanliness
a necessary duty; by the amount of the collective
soap bill. Now, soda, once upon a time,
was dear. It was imported into France from
Spain, at an annual cost of twenty to thirty
millions of francs. During the war with
England, it was, of course, the duty of this
country to impede the commerce of its enemies.
The price of soda, therefore (and consequently
that of soap and glass), rose continually, and
all manufactures suffered.

In this emergency, Le Blanc, at the end of
the last century, discovered a method of making
soda from common salt. For the discovery,
Napoleon had, in fact, offered a premium. It
was of great value to France during the war;
nevertheless, the promised premium was never
paid. There were so many debts of honour
due to the gay-coated gentry, that it was
impossible to bear in mind a debt of justice to
Le Blanc. A method was discovered, then,
by which common salt (chloride of sodium)
could be converted into carbonate of soda.
Well, you may say, that was a small fact:
now, show me whether you can prove it to be
worth a battle of Blenheim.

Worth a battle of that kind, however—
worth it—we should scarcely say; for can
there be any parallel between the advantage
to mankind of receiving a gift, and the honour
of suffering a robbery? However, let us follow
out the train of consequences which succeed
Le Blanc's discovery. "To prepare carbonate
of soda from common salt," says Liebig, "it
is first converted into Glauber's salt (sulphate
of soda). For this purpose eighty pounds
weight of concentrated sulphuric acid (oil of
vitriol) are required to one hundred pounds
of common salt. The duty upon salt checked,
for a short time, the full advantage of this
discovery; but when the British Government
repealed the duty, and its price was reduced
to its minimum, the cost of soda depended
upon that of sulphuric acid.

"The demand for sulphuric acid now
increased to an immense extent; and, to supply
it, capital was embarked abundantly, as it
afforded an excellent remuneration. The
origin and formation of sulphuric acid was
studied more carefully; and from year to
year, better, simpler, and cheaper methods of
making it were discovered. With every
improvement in the mode of manufacture, its
price fell, and its sale increased in an equal
ratio.

"Sulphuric acid is now manufactured in
leaden chambers, of such magnitude, that they
would contain the whole of an ordinary sized
house. As regards the process and the
apparatus, this manufacture has reached its acmé
—scarcely is either susceptible of improvement.
The leaden plates of which the chambers