[...] To the further advancement of science, nothing indeed can operate more prejudicially than an over-estimate of what has been accomplished. We are too apt to believe that “we are the people, and wisdom shall perish with us“. Dazzled with the present, we detect nothing in the gloom beyond. [...] that, in short, of time, space and labor, there can be any considerable contractions, beyond those which have been effected within the memories of men now living; are propositions much less frequently entertained than the other, which detects the Ultima Thule of human research in the current epoch [...]
From: “What Great Exhibitions Teach“, The New York Times, June 29, 1853
