It is futile to say that without this one or that one the enterprise would have been a failure; that without his officers and his men the general could not have waged a successful campaign.

We must, in every great accomplishment which has influenced the history of the world, search out the master mind to whom, under Heaven, the epoch-making result is due, and him must we crown with the laurel wreath.
Of nothing is this more true than of invention, for I venture to assert that no great invention has ever sprung Minerva-like from the brain of one man.

It has been the culmination of the discoveries, the researches, yes, and the failures, of others, until the time was ripe and the destined man appeared.

While due credit and all honor must be given to the other laborers in the field, the niche in the temple of fame must be reserved for the one man whose genius has combined all the known elements and added the connecting link to produce the great result.
As an invention the telegraph was truly epoch-making.

It came at a time when steam navigation on land and water was yet in its infancy, and it is idle to speculate on the slow progress which this would have made had it not been for the assistance of the electric spark.
The science of electricity itself was but an academic curiosity, and it was not until the telegraph had demonstrated that this mysterious force could be harnessed to the use of man, that other men of genius arose to extend its usefulness in other directions; and this, in turn, stimulated invention in many other fields, and the end is not yet.
It has been necessary, in selecting letters, to omit many fully as interesting as those which have been included; barely to touch on subjects of research, or of political and religious discussion, which are worthy of being pursued further, and to omit some subjects entirely.