Excerpt from A Discourse Delivered Before the Society for the Commemoration of the Landing of William Penn The primary arts and sciences of necessity and usefulness, husbandry, building, commerce and manufactures have advanced to a state of perfec tion to be compared with the oldest and most re fined nations. But an opinion or apprehension prevails that our political meridian is not adaptede to the luxuries of architecture, sculpture, painting and music. Doubts have indeed been expressed as to polite literature also. The modern repub lies of Italy, in which all the finearts began and flourished to the highest degree, are historical re futations of this disparagement. The ancient re publics teem with redeeming arguments for our consolation; and the short career of this country, of this city, is the best practical proof that liberty and equality are the most powerful protectors of every art and science. 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.