MACHINERY OF THE CLAYS. 251 



The truth is that, opposed as they appear to be, 

 they are the two sides of one and the same character, 

 a character eminently and essentially practical, 

 which cannot recognize any thing but what is, and 

 will consent to look neither into the future nor the 

 past with a very patient gaze. We smile at the 

 imaginative habit of mind of the German, and the 

 precipitate quickness of the Frenchman ; yet in fact 

 through sheer practical industry, we surpass in 

 effective progress the dreams of the one, and the 

 quick conceits and anticipations of the other. 



But inestimably valuable in result, this national 

 character makes invention excessively difficult, ex- 

 cept where it drops in as it were in the course of 

 business, suggests itself to the mind of the workman, 

 and in a workman-like way, to ease him in his task, 

 or to shorten a process done for the thousandth time 

 before the abbreviating link in the chain of practical 

 cause and effect, forced itself upon his notice. Any 

 thing like a priori investigation of a problem ele- 

 mentary view of the principles lying at the root of 

 a process is the rarest source of invention. Thus 

 it is that a clever machine makes the workmen 

 employed upon it intelligent ; as the insect takes its 

 color from the leaf it feeds on. Discovery follows 

 discovery in rapid succession ; and each room in a 



