"There is no part of history so generally useful, as that which relates
the progress of the human mind, the gradual improvement of reason, the
successive advances of science, the vicissitudes of learning and
ignorance, which are the light and darkness of thinking beings, the
extinction and resuscitation of arts, and the revolutions of the
intellectual world. If accounts of battles and invasions are peculiarly
the business of princes, the useful or elegant arts are not to be
neglected; those who have kingdoms to govern, have understandings to
cultivate.
"Example is always more efficacious than precept. A soldier is formed in
war, and a painter must copy pictures. In this, contemplative life has
the advantage: great actions are seldom seen, but the labours of art are
always at hand, for those who desire to know what art has been able to
perform.
"When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the
next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was
performed. Here begins the true use of such contemplation; we enlarge
our comprehension by new ideas, and, perhaps, recover some art lost to
mankind, or learn what is less perfectly known in our own country. At
least, we compare our own with former times, and either rejoice at our
improvements, or, what is the first motion towards good, discover our
defects.
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