Step I. Is to investigate the fundamental principles of the theory, and process, of the art or manufacture we wish to improve. II. To consider what is the best plan, in theory, that can be deduced from, or founded on, those principles to produce the effect we desire. III. To inquire whether the theory is already put in practice to the best advantage; and what are the imperfections or disadvantages of the common process, and what plans are likely to succeed better. IV. To make experiments in practice, upon any plans that these speculative reasonings may suggest, or lead to.--Any ingenious artist, taking the foregoing steps, will probably be led to improvements on his own art: for we see by daily experience that every art may be improved. It will, however, be in vain to attempt improvements unless the mind be freed from prejudice, in favour of established plans.[204] [204] pp. 345-346. Evans was certainly an independent, and probably the first, inventor of the high pressure steam engine, a type of engine which he saw was well suited to American pioneer conditions. He was interested in steam locomotion, and predicted the development of railways with singular accuracy. The time will come when people will travel in stages moved by steam engines from one city to another almost as fast as birds fly--fifteen to twenty miles an hour. Passing through the air with such velocity--changing the scenes in such rapid succession--will be the most exhilarating, delightful exercise. A carriage will set out from Washington in the morning, and the passengers will breakfast at Baltimore, dine at Philadelphia, and sup at New York the same day. To accomplish this, two sets of railways will be laid so nearly level as not in any place to deviate more than two degrees from a horizontal line, made of wood or iron, on smooth paths of broken stone or gravel, with a rail to guide the carriages so that they may pass each other in different directions and travel by night as well as by day; and the passengers will sleep in these stages as comfortably as they do now in steam stage-boats. A steam engine that will consume from one-quarter to one-half a cord of wood will drive a carriage 180 miles in twelve hours, with twenty or thirty passengers, and will not consume six gallons of water. The carriages will not be overloaded with fuel or water.... And it shall come to pass that the memory of those sordid and wicked wretches who oppose such improvements will be execrated by every good man, as they ought to be now. Posterity will not be able to discover why the Legislature or Congress did not grant the inventor such protection as might have enabled him to put in operation these great improvements sooner--he having asked neither money nor a monopoly of any existing thing.[205]