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then she is quite independent of them, for she answers all the purposes of her existence perfectly well without their assistance. Richard, can you give us a more accurate account of the difference between man and animals?

Richard. I suppose, papa, the chief difference is our having reason, and they only instinct.

Father. But, in order to understand what we mean by the terms reason and instinct, I think three things may be mentioned, in which the difference very distinctly appears.

Richard. What are they, papa ?

Father. Let us first, to bring the parties as nearly on a level as possible, consider man in a savage state, wholly occupied like the beasts of the field, in providing for the wants of his animal nature; and here the first distinction, that appears between him and the creatures around him, is, the use of implements.

Richard. Ah, I should never have thought of that.

Father. When the savage provides himself with a hut, or a crawl, or a wigwam, for shelter, or that he may store up his provision, he does no more than is done by the rabbit, the beaver, the bee, and birds of every species. But the man cannot make any progress in his work without something like tools, however rude and simple in their form: he must provide himself with an axe, even before he can lop down a tree for its timber; whereas these animals form their burrows, their cells, or their nests, with the most math8 ematical nicety, with no other tools than those with which nature has provided them. In cultivating the ground, also, man can do nothing without a spade or a plough; nor can he reap what he has sown, till he has shaped an instrument, with which to cut down his harvests. But. the animals provide for themselves and their young without any of these things.

Edward. Then, here again, the animals are the best off. Father. That is not our present inquiry: now for the second distinction : Man, in all his operations makes 9 mistakes, animals make none.

Edward. Do animals never make mistakes?

Father. Why Edward, did you ever see such a thing, or hear of such a thing, as a little bird sitting disconsolate on a twig, lamenting over her half finished nest, and puzzling her little poll to know how to complete it? Did you ever

see the cells of a bee-hive in clumsy irregular shapes, or ob serve any thing like a discussion in the little community, as if there were a difference of opinion among the architects? The boys laughed, and owned they had never heard of 10 such a thing.

Father. Animals are even better physicians than we are, for when they are ill, they will many of them, seek out some particular herb, which they do not use as food, and which possesses a medicinal quality exactly suited to the complaint. Whereas, the whole college of physicians will dispute for a century, and not at last agree upon the virtues of a single drug. Man undertakes nothing in which he is not more or less puzzled: he must try numberless experiments before he can bring his undertakings to any thing 11 like perfection; and these experiments imply a succession of mistakes. Even the simplest operations of domestic life are not well performed without some experience; and the term of man's life is half wasted, before he has done with his mistakes, and begins to profit by his lessons.

Edward. Then, papa, how is it? for after all, we are better than animals.

Father. Observe, then, our third distinction, which is, that animals make no improvements, while the knowledge and the skill, and the success of man are perpetually on 12 the increase. The inventions and discoveries of one generation, are, through the medium of literature, handed down to succeeding ones; so that the accumulated experience of all former ages and nations is ready for our use, before we begin to think and act for ourselves. The result of which is, that the most learned and ingenious among the ancient philosophers, Aristotle or Archimedes, might learn in an hour from a modern school boy, more than the laborious study of their lives could enable them to discover.

Richard. Well, I am glad we have thought of something 13 at last, to prove that men are wiser than rabbits.

Father. Herein appears the difference between what we call instinct and reason. Animals, in all their operations, follow the first impulse of nature, or that invariable law which God has implanted in them. In all they do undertake, therefore, their works are more perfect and regular than those of men. But man, having been endowed with the faculty of thinking or reasoning about what he does,

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although, (being an imperfect and fallible creature,) this liberty exposes him to mistake and is perpetually reading 14 him into error; yet by patience, perseverance, and industry, and by long experience, he at last achieves what angels may, perhaps, behold with admiration. A bird's nest, is indeed, a perfect and beautiful structure; yet the nest of a swallow of the nineteenth century, is not at all more commodious, or elegant, than those that were built amid the rafters of Noah's ark. But if we compare, (I will not say "Adam's bower, for that was doubtless in the finest style of nature's own architecture,) but if we compare the wigwam of the North American Indian, with the temples and palaces of an15 cient Greece and Rome, we then shall see to what men's mistakes, rectified and improved upon, conduct him. Animals can provide for their wants, and for those of their offspring, with the utmost adroitness; and just so much, and no more, did their antediluvian ancestry: while man, after having provided for his first necessities, emerging gradually from the savage state, begins to cultivate poetry and music, proceeds to the knowledge of arts and sciences, unknown and unthought of by his rude forefathers, till, (in humble imitation of the works of God himself,) he gives exquisite 16 construction to the rudest materials which nature has left for his use; supplying those artificial wants and wishes, for which it was beneath her dignity to provide; and while his hand thus executes all that is ingenious and beautiful, his thought glances at all that is magnificent and sublime.

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LESSON LIII.

Manufacture of a Pin.-ANONYMOUS.

THERE is an article employed in dress, which is at once so necessary and so beautiful, that the highest lady in the land uses it, and yet so cheap, that the poorest peasant's wife is enabled to procure it. The quality of the article is as perfect as art can make it; and yet, from the enormous quantities consumed by the great mass of the people, it is made so cheap that the poor can purchase the best kind, as well as the rich. It is an article of universal use. United with machinery, many hundreds, and even thousands, are

employed in making it. But if the machinery were to 2 stop, and the article were made by human hands alone, it would become so dear, that the richest only could afford to use it; and it would become, at the same time, so rough. in its appearance, that those very rich would be ashamed of using it. The article we mean is a pin.

Machinery of all kinds is difficult to be described by words. It is not necessary for us to describe the machinery used in pin-making, to make you comprehend its effects. A pin is made of brass. You have seen how metal is obtained from ore by machinery, and, therefore, 3 we will not go over that ground. But suppose the mostskilful workman has a lump of brass ready by his side, to make into pins with common tools,--with a hammer and with a file. He beats it upon an anvil, till it becomes

nearly thin enough for his purpose. A very fine hammer, and a very fine touch, must he have, to produce a pin of any sort, even a large corking-pin! But the pin made by machinery is a perfect cylinder. To make a metal, or even a wooden cylinder, of considerable size, with files and polishing, is an operation so difficult, that it is never 4 attempted; but with a lathe and a sliding-rest, it is done every hour, by a great many workmen. How much more

difficult would it be to make a perfect cylinder, the size of a pin! A pin hammered out by hand would present a number of rough edges that would tear the clothes, as well as hold them together. It would not be much more useful or ornamental than the skewer of bone, with which the woman of the Sandwich Islands fastens her mats. But the wire of which a pin is made, acquires a perfectly cylin drical form by the simplest machinery. It is forcibly drawn 5 through the circular holes of a steel plate; and the hole being smaller and smaller each time it is drawn through, it is at length reduced to the size required.

The head of a pin is a more difficult thing to make even than the body. It is formed of a small piece of wire twisted round so as to fit upon the other wire. It is said that by a machine, fifty thousand heads can be made in an hour. We should think that a man would be very skilful to make fifty in an hour, by hand, in the roughest manner; if the machine does the work of a thousand men. The machine however, does not do all the work. The head is

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6 attached to the body of a pin by the fingers of a child, while another machine rivets it on. The operations of cutting and pointing the pins are also done by machinery : and they are polished by a chemical process.

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It is by these processes,-by these combinations of human labor with mechanical power,-that it occurs, that fifty pins can be bought for one half-penny, and that, therefore, four or five thousand pins may be consumed in a year by the most economical housewife, at a much less price than fifty pins of a rude make cost two or three centuries ago. 7 woman's allowance was formerly called her pin-money,—a proof that pins were a sufficiently dear article to make a large item in her expenses. If pins now were to cost a half-penny apiece, instead of being fifty for a half-penny, the greater number of females would adopt other modes of fastening their dress, which would probably be less neat and convenient than pins. No such circumstance could happen while the machinery of pin-making is in use; but if the machinery were suppressed, by any act of folly on the part of the pin-makers who work with the machinery, pins would go out of use, probably all together: the pin-makers would lose all their employment; and all the women of the land would be deprived of one of the simplest, and yet most useful inventions connected with the dress of modern times.

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search.-Shakspeare.

If to do, were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages, princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over a cold decree; such a hare is madness the youth, to skip over the meshes of good counsel the cripple.-Ib.

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