"The chief cause which made the fusion of the different elements of society so imperfect was the extreme difficulty which our ancestors found in passing from place to place. Of all inventions, the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most for the civilisation of our species. Every improvement of the mean of locomotions benefits mankind mortally AND intellectually as well as materially, and not only facilitated the interchange of the various productions of mature and artist, but rends to removed nationals and provincial antipathies, and to bind together all the branches of the human family."