Inventas----vitam excoluere per artes.
VIRG. AEn. vi. 663.
They polish life by useful arts.
THAT familiarity produces neglect, has been
long observed. The effect of all external objects,
however great or splendid, ceases with their novelty;
the courtier stands without emotion in the royal
presence: the rustick tramples under his foot the
beauties of the spring with little attention to their
colours or their fragrance; and the inhabitant of the
coast darts his eye upon the immense diffusion of
waters, without awe, wonder, or terrour.
Those who have past much of their lives in this
great city, look upon its opulence and its multitudes,
its extent and variety, with cold indifference; but an
inhabitant of the remoter parts of the kingdom is
immediately distinguished by a kind of dissipated
curiosity, a busy endeavour to divide his attention
amongst a thousand objects, and a wild confusion of
astonishment and alarm.
The attention of a new comer is generally first
struck by the multiplicity of cries that stun him in
the streets, and the variety of merchandize and
manufactures which the shopkeepers expose on
every hand; and he is apt, by unwary bursts of
admiration, to excite the merriment and contempt
of those who mistake the use of their eyes for effects
of their understanding, and confound accidental
knowledge with just reasoning.
But, surely, these are subjects on which any man
may without reproach employ his meditations: the
innumerable occupations, among which the thousands
that swarm in the streets of London, are distributed,
may furnish employment to minds of every
cast, and capacities of every degree. He that
contemplates the extent of this wonderful city, finds it
difficult to conceive, by what method plenty is
maintained in our markets, and how the inhabitants are
regularly supplied with the necessaries of life; but
when he examines the shops and warehouses, sees
the immense stores of every kind of merchandize
piled up for sale, and runs over all the manufactures
of art and products of nature, which are every where
attracting his eye and soliciting his purse, he will be
inclined to conclude, that such quantities cannot
easily be exhausted, and that part of mankind must
soon stand still for want of employment, till the wares
already provided shall be worn out and destroyed.
As Socrates was passing through the fair at Athens,
and casting his eyes over the shops and customers,
"how many things are here," says he, "that
I do not want!" The same sentiment is every
moment rising in the mind of him that walks the streets
of London, however inferior in philosophy to
Socrates: he beholds a thousand shops crowded with
goods, of which he can scarcely tell the use, and
which, therefore, he is apt to consider as of no value:
and indeed, many of the arts by which families are
supported, and wealth is heaped together, are of that
minute and superfluous kind, which nothing but
experience could evince possible to be prosecuted with
advantage, and which, as the world might easily
want, it could scarcely be expected to encourage.
But so it is, that custom, curiosity, or
wantonness, supplies every art with patrons, and finds
purchasers for every manufacture; the world is so
adjusted, that not only bread, but riches may be
obtained without great abilities or arduous
performances: the most unskilful hand and unenlightened
mind have sufficient incitements to industry; for
he that is resolutely busy, can scarcely be in want.
There is, indeed, no employment, however despicable,
from which a man may not promise himself
more than competence, when he sees thousands and
myriads raised to dignity, by no other merit than
that of contributing to supply their neighbours with
the means of sucking smoke through a tube of clay;
and others raising contributions upon those, whose
elegance disdains the grossness of smoky luxury, by
grinding the same materials into a powder that may
at once gratify and impair the smell.
Not only by these popular and modish trifles,
but by a thousand unheeded and evanescent kinds
of business, are the multitudes of this city preserved
from idleness, and consequently from want. In the
endless variety of tastes and circumstances that
diversify mankind, nothing is so superfluous, but that
some one desires it: or so common, but that some
one is compelled to buy it. As nothing is useless
but because it is in improper hands, what is thrown
away by one is gathered up by another; and the
refuse of part of mankind furnishes a subordinate
class with the materials necessary to their support.
When I look round upon those who are thus
variously exerting their qualifications, I cannot but
admire the secret concatenation of society that links
together the great and the mean, the illustrious
and the obscure; and consider with benevolent
satisfaction, that no man, unless his body or mind be
totally disabled, has need to suffer the mortification
of seeing himself useless or burthensome to the
community: he that will diligently labour, in whatever
occupation, will deserve the sustenance which
he obtains, and the protection which he enjoys; and
may lie down every night with the pleasing
consciousness of having contributed something to the
happiness of life.
Contempt and admiration are equally incident to
narrow minds: he whose comprehension can take
in the whole subordination of mankind, and whose
perspicacity can pierce to the real state of things
through the thin veils of fortune or of fashion, will
discover meanness in the highest stations, and dignity
in the meanest; and find that no man can become
venerable but by virtue, or contemptible but
by wickedness.
In the midst of this universal hurry, no man
ought to be so little influenced by example, or so
void of honest emulation, as to stand a lazy spectator
of incessant labour; or please himself with the
mean happiness of a drone, while the active swarms
are buzzing about him: no man is without some
quality, by the due application of which he might
deserve well of the world; and whoever he be that
has but little in his power, should be in haste to do
that little, lest he be confounded with him that can
do nothing.
By this general concurrence of endeavours, arts
of every kind have been so long cultivated, that all
the wants of man may be immediately supplied;
idleness can scarcely form a wish which she may not
gratify by the toil of others, or curiosity dream of a
toy, which the shops are not ready to afford her.
Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is
known; and such is the state or folly of man, that
it is known only by experience of its contrary: we
who have long lived amidst the conveniences of a
town immensely populous, have scarce an idea of a
place where desire cannot be gratified by money.
In order to have a just sense of this artificial plenty,
it is necessary to have passed some time in a distant
colony, or those parts of our island which are thinly
inhabited: he that has once known how many trades
every man in such situations is compelled to
exercise, with how much labour the products of nature
must be accommodated to human use, how long
the loss or defect of any common utensil must be
endured, or by what awkward expedients it must
be supplied, how far men may wander with money
in their hands before any can sell them what they
wish to buy, will know how to rate at its proper
value the plenty and ease of a great city.
But that the happiness of man may still remain
imperfect, as wants in this place are easily supplied,
new wants likewise are easily created; every man,
in surveying the shops of London, sees numberless
instruments and conveniences, of which, while he
did not know them, he never felt the need; and yet,
when use has made them familiar, wonders how life
could be supported without them. Thus it comes to
pass, that our desires always increase with our
possessions; the knowledge that something remains yet
unenjoyed, impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
They who have been accustomed to the refinements
of science, and multiplications of contrivance,
soon lose their confidence in the unassisted powers
of nature, forget the paucity of our real necessities,
and overlook the easy methods by which they may
be supplied. It were a speculation worthy of a
philosophical mind, to examine how much is taken away
from our native abilities, as well as added to them,
by artificial expedients. We are so accustomed to
give and receive assistance, that each of us singly
can do little for himself; and there is scarce any one
among us, however contracted may be his form of
life, who does not enjoy the labour of a thousand
artists.
But a survey of the various nations that inhabit
the earth will inform us, that life may be supported
with less assistance; and that the dexterity, which
practice enforced by necessity produces, is able to
effect much by very scanty means. The nations of
Mexico and Peru erected cities and temples with
out the use of iron; and at this day the rude Indian
supplies himself with all the necessaries of life: sent
like the rest of mankind naked into the world, as
soon as his parents have nursed him up to strength,
he is to provide by his own labour for his own support.
His first care is to find a sharp flint among the
rocks; with this he undertakes to fell the trees of
the forest; he shapes his bow, heads his arrows,
builds his cottage, and hollows his canoe, and from
that time lives in a state of plenty and prosperity;
he is sheltered from the storms, he is fortified against
beasts of prey, he is enabled to pursue the fish of
the sea, and the deer of the mountains; and as he
does not know, does not envy the happiness of
polished nations, where gold can supply the want of
fortitude and skill, and he whose laborious ancestors
have made him rich, may lie stretched upon a couch,
and see all the treasures of all the elements poured
down before him.
This picture of a savage life if it shows how much
individuals may perform, shows likewise how much
society is to be desired. Though the perseverance
and address of the Indian excite our admiration,
they nevertheless cannot procure him the conveniences
which are enjoyed by the vagrant beggar of a
civilized country: he hunts like a wild beast to
satisfy his hunger; and when he lies down to rest after
a successful chase, cannot pronounce himself secure
against the danger of perishing in a few days: he is,
perhaps, content with his condition, because he
knows not that a better is attainable by man; as he
that is born blind does not long for the perception
of light, because he cannot conceive the advantages
which light would afford him; but hunger, wounds,
and weariness, are real evils, though he believes
them equally incident to all his fellow-creatures;
and when a tempest compels him to lie starving in
his hut, he cannot justly be concluded equally happy
with those whom art has exempted from the power
of chance, and who make the foregoing year provide
for the following.
To receive and to communicate assistance,
constitutes the happiness of human life: man may, indeed,
preserve his existence in solitude, but can enjoy it
only in society; the greatest understanding of an
individual, doomed to procure food and clothing
for himself, will barely supply him with expedients
to keep off death from day to day; but as one of a
large community performing only his share of the
common business, he gains leisure for intellectual
pleasures, and enjoys the happiness of reason and
reflection.