Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Thoughts on the Character and Standing of the Mechanical Profession: A Discourse, Delivered by Invitation, to the Mechanical Institute of the City of Louisville, January 14, 1840
In the first formation of every structure or piece of ma chinery (andi every structure had a first inventive process not only preceded the handicraft-operation, but stood related to it as its cause. In every movement of the workman's hand, and in every change made or meditated by him in the fabric he was framing, his mind directed, and was the source of action. And a mistake or failure in that! Source would have produced a corresponding mistake or failure in the work.
I do riot say that the mere operative mechanic exercises invention in the construction-of machines that have previ ously existed. Quite otherwise. Such a workman is only an imitator, and occupies in his profession an inferior-standing. But no matter. The machine was originally invented by the mind of its author, before it was framed by the action of his hands. Its archetype existed in his mind, in idea, before it existed really itself in wood or metal.
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