with which they advance may be unequal in different ages, and may have its
paroxysms and intermissions, arising from the inconstancy of human
passions, and from the casual appearance or removal of occasions that
excite them. But does this spirit, which for a time continues to carry on
the project of civil and commercial arts, find a natural pause in the
termination of its own pursuits? May the business of civil society be
accomplished, and may the occasion of farther exertion be removed? Do
continued disappointments reduce sanguine hopes, and familiarity with
objects blunt the edge of novelty? Does experience itself cool the ardour
of the mind? May the society be again compared to the individual? And may
it be suspected, although the vigour of a nation, like that of a natural
body, does not waste by a physical decay, that yet it may sicken for want
of exercise, and die in the close of its own exertions? May societies, in
the completion of all their designs, like men in years, who disregard the
amusements, and are insensible to the passions of youth, become cold and
indifferent to objects that used to animate in a ruder age? And may a
polished community be compared to a man who, having executed his plan,
built his house, and made his settlement; who having, in short, exhausted
the charms of every subject, and wasted all his ardour, sinks into languor
and listless indifference? If so, we have found at least another simile to
our purpose. But it is probable, that here too the resemblance is
imperfect; and the inference that would follow, like that of most arguments
drawn from analogy, tends rather to amuse the fancy, than to give any real
information on the subject to which it refers.

The materials of human art are never entirely exhausted, and the
applications of industry are never at an end. The national ardour is not,
at any particular time, proportioned to the occasion there is for activity;
nor the curiosity of the learned to the extent of subject that remains to
be studied.