第25章

They even, who would seem to have least to attach them to their native soil, the poor mechanic, and drudging laborer, cling to it with the greatest tenacity, and generally quit it not, unless forced from it by inevitable necessity or by the continued pressure of some heavy evil.In this way the ills, that the tyranny of despots, or civil and religious factions, or war, or famine, brings upon communities, have often compelled great numbers of their most industrious citizens, to abandon their homes, and seek refuge in foreign countries.These emigrations have been powerfully instrumental in improving the arts of civilized life and diffusing a knowledge of them over the earth.Perhaps few arts would have much passed the narrow limits to which their first discovery confined them, had not communities been subject to be tom in pieces, and scattered abroad, by the violence of the events to which we allude.They have been taking place in every age since the world began, and have been, every now and then, forcing large bands of men to quit their native homes and seek refuge in foreign countries.Whenever such emigrations occur, they carry the knowledge and skill of the countries they leave, into those in which they settle, and diffuse them over them; by bringing together the different arts of different countries, they enable one to borrow from the other, and raise all nearer to perfection;and, by giving opportunity to them to unite with one another, from that union, they occasionally produce some that did not before exist.In all these modes, they have promoted very greatly the progress of human improvement.

The influence of these causes, though more powerful in remote ages than in the present times, has not yet ceased.It is shown in events of very recent date or actual progress.To it we chiefly owe the origin of those flourishing states, which the European race have raised up in North America; and the rapid progress over the Western Hemisphere, of every improvement that art or science effects in the Eastern.

Besides the direct agency which these outbreakings of the violent passions of mankind, by disturbing and deranging the smooth and uniform course of human existence, have had in casting it into new and often improved forms, they have produced similar effects in a manner less conspicuous and evident.

Commerce introduces a taste for the productions of the arts of one country into others, which are remote from it.These productions, at first regarded as mere superfluities or luxuries, pass, in time and from habit, into things essential to the comfort, almost to the existence, of those who have become accustomed to their use.War interrupts this commerce and thus cuts off the supply that it afforded of such articles.Excited by the rewards offered by the eagerness of a demand that cannot be supplied from abroad, the domestic industry of the country then exerts itself, first, to produce rude imitations of the foreign commodity, and at length, rival manufactures.This is a cause which has extensively operated in modern times, in spreading manufactures from country to country.It is to the wars springing out of the French revolution, and the interruption to European commerce that they occasioned, that the first rise of many manufactures in different parts of the old and new world, which are now in a very prosperous condition, is to be traced.

But besides the influence which the violent operation of foreign wars, and intestine commotions, has had in promoting the propagation of arts over the world, many of them unquestionably have been encouraged and enabled to extend themselves to, and take root in, countries remote from the seats where they originally flourished, by the direct efforts of the legislators of such countries, to draw them there, to cherish their first feeble advances, and to promote their subsequent growth and vigor.There are very few productions of modern art, that do not stand indebted to the legislators of the countries in which they are manufactured, for their advancement and perfection.

These three causes have, generally, more or less cooperated with each other in the extension and advancement of every branch of art.The cases where the efforts of private individuals, unaided by one or all of them, have-been successfull in transferring any manufacture to a distant country, are, as I have already observed, exceedingly rare.

In accordance with the doctrine which he supports throughout, it is here maintained by our author that the last of these causes operating in the production of new arts, or in their introduction into a country, the interference, viz, of the legislator, is improper, because necessarily injurious; and that his agency, so directed, always, and from its very nature, instead of promoting the advancement of the general opulence and prosperity, operates in a manner prejudicial to both.Allowing that this introduction of new arts and manufactures from foreign states is, in itself, beneficial, in so much that he assigns it, as we have seen, as one of the causes of countries becoming wealthy and prosperous; he maintains, that this particular mode of introducing them is necessarily injurious.

We have then to inquire, if there are any other means by which, according to his principles, this acknowledged most beneficial result can be brought about.