It may even be doubted, whether the measure of national capacity increases
with the advancement of arts. Many mechanical arts, indeed, require no
capacity; they succeed best under a total suppression of sentiment and
reason; and ignorance is the mother of industry as well as of superstition.
Reflection and fancy are subject to err; but a habit of moving the hand, or
the foot, is independent of either. Manufactures, accordingly, prosper most
where the mind is least consulted, and where the workshop may, without any
great effort of imagination, be considered as an engine, the parts of which
are men.
The forest has been felled by the savage without the use of the axe, and
weights have been raised without the aid of the mechanical powers. The
merit of the inventor, in every branch, probably deserves a preference to
that of the performer; and he who invented a tool, or could work without
its assistance, deserved the praise of ingenuity in a much higher degree
than the mere artist, who, by its assistance, produces a superior work.
But if many parts in the practice of every art, and in the detail of every
department, require no abilities, or actually tend to contract and to limit
the views of the mind, there are others which lead to general reflections,
and to enlargement of thought.
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