When the mind is full of any great idea, it knows when it has got an adequate expression for it, and rests not satisfied until it has filly, and accurately embodied it.lint, if this great presiding idea be wanting, there is nothing within, distinguishing the right from the wrong, or preventing the commission of the greatest errors.Our mason-work and plastered fabrics, are consequently, often masses of incongruities.
Our choice of Gothic models, for similar reasons, generally fails as completely.A large cathedral, indeed, must be admired any where, but this is too great a work to be attempted.A copy is probably taken, from some chapel.We forget, that what was admirable for its purpose in some small ancient rustic hamlet, is out of place in our cities; that the arches, which, to simple peasants, living in huts, seemed magnificent, to the chieftain, issuing for a time from his naked fortalice, elegant, must appear mean, and insignificant, to those, whose halls are nearly as lofty; and, that the whole pinnacled and buttressed structure, crowded on and perhaps overtopped, by square unseemly buildings, devoted to meaner uses, shows among them, trifling, and fantastic, like a toy erected to please children.
II.The examples we have hitherto considered, are of the same arts changing materials.Those which we have now to attend to, are of different arts adopting the same, or similar materials.When arts are brought together, they borrow from each other.Men perceive that some materials, or instruments, or processes, employed in the one, could they be transferred to the other, would be the cause of its yielding larger returns.They are encouraged, therefore, to attempt the change, and experience shows, that such attempts perseveringly pursued, are generally successful.
Efforts of the inventive faculty, succeeding in effecting such transfers, are more important than those in which it accomplishes simply, a change of materials, for they tend more than they to weaken the powers of the propensity to imitation, and establish general principles, applicable to all arts.Hence we observe, that, in countries where many arts flourish, there are most general principles, least servile imitations, and very often, a continual onward progress.Barren apart, they show generative virtues when brought together.I take it, that it is chiefly from this circumstance, that the seats of commerce have been so generally the points, from whence improvements in the arts have emanated.Thus, also, countries where various different races, or nations, have mingled together, are to be noted, as coming eminently forward in the career of industry.Great Britain is a remarkable instance of this; so are the United States of America.When individuals meet from different countries, they reciprocally communicate and receive the arts of each, adopt such as are suited to their new circumstances, and probably improve several.Servile imitation can there have no place, for there is no common standard to imitate.Countries again, where only one art is practised, and where the population is composed of one unmingled race, are generally servilely imitative.Such are some, purely agricultural countries.Experience shows, that, from the influence of this propensity, improvements, in these, always introduce themselves very slowly.Leaving, however, these general reflections, we should now turn to particular instances of passages in this way, of processes and inventions, from art to art, and consequent improvement of old, and generation of new arts.But, as these will be chiefly recent, and European, there are one or two circumstances, affecting generally their progress in this part of the globe, to which it may be as well previously to advert.
The rough and variable climate of Europe, compared with the regions that have given origin to most of the arts now prevailing in it, renders the necessary cost of subsistence much greater.To live at all, in most parts of Europe, men must consume a greater quantity, and better quality of food, or they must be more warmly clothed, and comfortably lodged, than in regions nearer the equator.The influence of this circumstance, has probably been somewhat increased by another.Along the Mediterranean, civilization seems to have gained great part of its advance by colonization, and it is to be observed, that this movement of men from one region to another, proceeds from different motives, than others impelling them to a change of seat.Men are often compelled by necessity to migrate in tribes and nations, but emigration in small parties, proceeds from choice.
They cannot well be induced to leave, not only their homes, but their kindred and nation, unless from the hope of bettering their condition, and, if their project miscarries not, they do in fact better their condition, and are indemnified for the pains of emigration, by a greater command of the necessaries and comforts of life.Thus habits of larger consumption are introduced, than absolute necessity might demand.Both circumstances would have the effect of augmenting the expense, or the wages of labor, and of creating an additional difficulty, to the passage of the arts of warmer climates, into these more northern regions.It is very evident, for example, that an European workman could never have sat down to a Hindoo loom, for the purpose of fabricating a garment to himself; it would have been nmch better for him to keep to his sheepskin jacket.Before the transfer of any art could be effected, invention had to supply it with additional facilities.Stimulated by its wants, by the new scenes in which it found itself and by the new materials submitted to it, it accordingly seems always to have succeeded in doing so.There is, perhaps, scarcely an implement, in general use in Africa, or in Asia, excepting from it China, that has not passed with improvement into Europe.
