Skill is attained by man, in eonfequence of fuch leifure for t!iefxerciie of intelieft, from experience and information, from judg-ment and inference. His animal frame is wonderfully adapted tothe execution of his contrivances, the human hand being an excel,lent mimlter to the human head. Dexterity in operation is acquir-ed through habit, in the courfe of frequent repetition ; and it at.tains to its higheft excellence, through that exclufive application oftalent to one occupation which both leads to, and is dependent upon,that fubdivifion of labour which enfues from the univerfal propeniityto exchange what is poffi-ffed in fuperabundance, againft what is con.ftdered as more neceffary.
In proportion to the dexterity thus acquired, through the exclu-five appropriation of talent to one employment, labour becomes in.calculably more produdtive ; and, in proportion to the extent of thefacility of exchange, fo much greater is the encouragement to thatft ill farther fubdivifion of labour, which tends more and more toaugment every fpecies of produdlion.
When labour is thus rendered so superiorly productive, the la-bours of a few suffice for the subsistence of many. With less la-bour in production, more produce may be saved from immediateconsumption. Stock can therefore increase; and with it, moreleisure for contemplation, and the realization of its subjects:*Room is afforded for the cultivation of the arts and sciences; forthe invention of machinery, and the discovery of other naturalpowers, and their successful application to the facilitating and a-bridgment of labour, by which its productive powers may be in-definitely increased ; for improving and extending the means ofintercourse and exchange—by improvement of navigation—orby canals, paved roads, and iron rail-ways, through which meansare procured, artificially, to inland countries, those advantagespossessed from nature, which have generally enabled countries,
* ‘ Tn the first stages of civilization, the labour of each individual is barely
* sufficient to procure a scanty and precarious subsistence for himself; andcir-
* cumstances so adverse, not only form a bar to the introduction of other arts,4 but also chill and render torpid every faculty of the human mind. When these
* faculties are blunted by the cravings of nature, and wasted by the exercise of4 corporeal employment, man discovers few of those rational powers by which he4 is distinguished in the more advanced stages of society. It is only in situations
* where the means of subsistence are ample, w here the labour of a certain part of4 the community is sufficient to provide the necessaries of life for the whole, and
* where a considerable proportion of the remaining population is placed beyond4 the necessity of manual labour to procure these necessaries, that the powers of4 the mind develop themselves, and show r what man is really capable of perform*4 ing. Hence, since the art of agriculture came to be so well understood,
4 subsistence, of course, to be secured to mankind, without the necessity oi4 bodily labour from all, the mind of man has expanded, other arts and sciences4 have been successfully cultivated, and man, from being not much above the4 irrational animals, now fills a dignified place in the scale of created beings.’—Treatise of Rural sift airs, by Robert Rrown, Farmer at Marble i county oj' Hd'dington } sol. I. Iutrod. p. 4,