Excerpt from Annual Summaries, Vol. 1: Reprinted From the Times; 1851 1875 There is a rule of life so directly the ordinance of Nature that all authorities are unanimous in its favour. Moralists and economists, philosophers and merchants, alike insist on the duty of reviewing the natural periods of time and settling the balance of losses and gains. As we are placed here to advance and improve, unless we keep a log of our voyage, and take stock of our goods, we lose at least one important security and stimulus. An annual Budget is expected from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Her Majesty cannot open Parliament or prorogue it without a short, business-like review of the recess or the session. Following these precedents, therefore, we will proceed to sum up the losses and gains of the year 1851, which has just quietly expired. It has given us one vast and immeasurable gain in the Great Exhibition. All the nations of the civilised world, not to say more, have been represented - some very largely, and all very efficiently - in one fair temple of industry and peace. All have become wiser and better known; all have cast into one great treasury, and been blessed from its stores; and on the minds of many nations and many millions has been left one soothing and instructive, one glorious and indelible, impression. On all sides the seeds of knowledge and enterprise, cast on the waters of that peaceful confluence, are beginning to bear fruit in new discoveries and undertakings. A vision of universal peace has been seen by the world, and, if its realisation is still remote, its influence is not the less salutary and energetic. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.