260 Mr Sang on the Carpet Manufacture. 



thod ; and that the manufacture meets with great and deserved 

 encouragement. 



Before concluding this imperfect notice of these two im- 

 provements, I would draw attention to a subject of great im- 

 portance to society in general. A strong prejudice, sanctioned 

 by an old proverb, exists against those who turn their attention 

 to several branches of the arts. Yet it is a fact, that almost 

 every improver has been jack of a good many trades,— -nay, an 

 acquaintance with a variety of operations is essential to the in- 

 vention of new ones ; and very often prodigious improvements 

 are effected by the simple transference of a process from one art 

 to another. May I be allowed to hint, that the triple carpet is 

 one of those generalizations so often found in scientific re- 

 searches, and that its inventor appears to have extended his 

 studies far beyond the subject of carpet weaving. The patent 

 carpet, again, bears on the face of it the necessity for a know- 

 ledge of the arts both of dyeing and of weaving ; for no one 

 not intimately versed in both arts could have conceived, or, 

 having conceived, could have carried the idea into effect. The 

 difficulties to be encountered were by no means few, and the 

 overcoming of each was itself an invention. 



Another idea exists, that the happening upon new discoveries 

 is a matter of chance; and some appear (I judge from their 

 conduct) to imagine that the less they know of a subject the 

 more likely they are to alight on something new — as a bad 

 swordsman trusts to that very circumstance for outwitting his 

 antagonist. Once in a century indeed one man among ten 

 millions may find, by chance, some valuable process ; but the 

 great mass of our current inventions are the fruits of assiduous 

 and well directed exertion; and the mind, even more truly 

 than the body, must earn its food in the sweat of its brow. 



Edinburgh, \2th Aug. 1835. 



