cannot judge of either.

After libraries are furnished, and every path of ingenuity is occupied, we
are, in proportion to our admiration of what is already done, prepossessed
against farther attempts. We become students and admirers, instead of
rivals; and substitute the knowledge of books, instead of the inquisitive
or animated spirit in which they were written.

The commercial and the lucrative arts may continue to prosper, but they
gain an ascendant at the expense of other pursuits. The desire of profit
stifles the love of perfection. Interest cools the imagination, and hardens
the heart; and, recommending employments in proportion as they are
lucrative, and certain in their gains, it drives ingenuity, and ambition
itself, to the counter and the workshop. But, apart from these
considerations, the separation of professions, while it seems to promise
improvement of skill, and is actually the cause why the productions of
every art become more perfect as commerce advances; yet, in its termination
and ultimate effects, serves, in some measure, to break the bands of
society, to substitute mere forms and rules of art in place of ingenuity,
and to withdraw individuals from the common scene of occupation, on which
the sentiments of the heart, and the mind, are most happily employed.

Under the _distinction_ of callings, by which the members of polished
society are separated from each other, every individual is supposed to
possess his species of talent, or his peculiar skill, in which the others
are confessedly ignorant; and society is made to consist of parts, of which
none is animated with the spirit that ought to prevail in the conduct of
nations. "We see in the same persons," said Pericles, "an equal attention
to private and to public affairs; and in men who have turned to separate
professions, a competent knowledge of what relates to the community; for we