Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/413

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(453.) reviewing the various processes offered as illustrations of those general principles which it has been the main object of the present volume to support and establish, it is impossible not to perceive that the arts and manufactures of the country are intimately connected with the progress of the severer sciences; and that, as we advance in the career of improvement, every step requires, for its success, that this connexion should be rendered more intimate.

The applied sciences derive their facts from experiment; but the reasonings, on which their chief utility depends, are the province of what is called abstract Science. It has been shown, that the division of labour is no less applicable to mental productions than to those in which material bodies are concerned; and it follows, that the efforts for the improvement of its manufactures which any country can make with the greatest probability of success, must arise from the combined exertions of all those most skilled in the theory, as well as in the practice of the arts; each labouring in that department for which his natural capacity and acquired habits have rendered him most fit.

(454.) The profit arising from the successful application to practice of theoretical principles, will, in