14. To suppose a higher development of endowments which already exist in man, is a natural mode of rising to the imagination of a being nobler than man is; but we shall find that such hypotheses do not lead us to any satisfactory result. Looking at the first of those features of the superiority of man over brutes, which we have just pointed out, the Human Hand, we can imagine this superiority carried further. Indeed, in the course of human progress, and especially in recent times, and in our own country, man employs instead of, or in addition to the hand, innumerable instruments to make nature serve his needs and do his will. He works by Tools and Machinery, derivative hands, which increase a hundred-fold the power of the natural hand. Shall we try to ascend to a New Period, to imagine a New Creature, by supposing this power increased hundreds and thousands of times more, so that nature should obey man, and minister to his needs, in an incomparably greater degree than she now does? We may imagine this carried so far, that all need for manual labor shall be superseded; and thus, abundant time shall be left to the creature thus gifted, for developing the intellectual and moral powers which must be the higher part of its nature. But still, that higher nature of the creature itself, and not its command over external material nature, must be the quarter in which we are to find anything which shall elevate the creature above man, as man is elevated above brutes. 15. Or, looking at the second of the features of human superiority, shall we suppose that the means of Communication of their thoughts to each other, which exist for the human race, are to be immensely increased, and that this is to be the leading feature of a New Period? Already, in addition to the use of the tongue, other means of communication have vastly multiplied man's original means of carrying on the intercourse of thought:--writing, employed in epistles, books, newspapers; roads, horses and posting establishments; ships; railways; and, as the last and most notable step, made in our time, electric telegraphs, extending across continents and even oceans. We can imagine this facility and activity of communication, in which man so immeasurably exceeds all animals, still further increased, and more widely extended. But yet so long as what is thus communicated is nothing greater or better than what is now communicated among men;--such news, such thoughts, such questions and answers, as now dart along our roads;--we could hardly think that the creature, whatever wonderful means of intercourse with its fellow-creatures it might possess, was elevated above man, so as to be of a higher nature than man is.