Page:The Conquest of Mexico Volume 1.djvu/119



T is hardly possible that a nation, so far advanced as the Aztecs in mathematical science, should not have made considerable progress in the mechanical arts, which are so nearly connected with it. Indeed, intellectual progress of any kind implies a degree of refinement that requires a certain cultivation of both useful and elegant art. The savage, wandering through the wide forest, without shelter for his head, or raiment for his back, knows no other wants than those of animal appetites; and, when they are satisfied, seems to himself to have answered the only ends of existence. But man, in society, feels numerous desires, and artificial tastes spring up, accommodated to the various relations in which he is placed, and perpetually stimulating his invention to devise new expedients to gratify them.

There is a wide difference in the mechanical skill of different nations; but the difference is still greater in the inventive power which directs this skill, and makes it available. Some nations seem to have no power beyond that of imitation; or, if they possess invention, have it in so low a degree, that they are constantly repeating the same idea, without a shadow of alteration or improvement; as the bird builds precisely the same kind of nest which those of its own species built at the beginning of the world. Such, for example, re the Chinese, who have, probably, been familiar for ages with the germs of some discoveries, of little practical benefit to themselves. But which, under the influence of European genius, have reached a degree of excellence, that has wrought an important change in the constitution of society.

Far from looking back, and forming itself slavishly on the past, it is characteristic of the European intellect to be ever on the advance.