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. The ignorant and the artless, to whom objects of science are new, and whose manner of life is most simple, instead of being more active and more curious, are commonly more quiescent, and less inquisitive, than those who are best furnished with knowledge and the conveniencies of life. When we compare the particulars which occupy mankind in the beginning and in the advanced age of commercial arts, these particulars will be found greatly multiplied and enlarged in the last. The questions we have put, however, deserve to be answered; and if, in the result of commerce, we do not find the objects of human pursuit removed, or greatly diminished, we may find them at least changed; and in estimating the national spirit, we may find a negligence in one part, but ill compensated by the growing attention which is paid to another. It is true, in general, that in all our pursuits, there is a termination of trouble, and a point of repose to which we aspire. We would remove this inconvenience, or gain that advantage, that our labours may cease. When I have conquered Italy and Sicily, says Pyrrhus, I shall then enjoy my repose. This termination is proposed in our national, as well as in our personal exertions; and, in spite of frequent experience to the contrary, is considered, at a distance, as the height of felicity. But nature has wisely, in most particulars, baffled our project; and placed no where within our reach this visionary blessing of absolute ease. The attainment of one end is but the beginning of a new pursuit; and the discovery of one art is but a prolongation of the thread by which we are conducted to further inquiries, and while we hope to escape from the labyrinth, are led to its most intricate paths. Among the occupations that may be enumerated, as tending to exercise the invention, and to cultivate the talents of men, are the pursuits of accommodation and wealth, including all the different contrivances which serve to increase manufactures, and to perfect the mechanical arts. But it must be owned, that as the materials of commerce may continue to be accumulated without any determinate limit, so the arts which are applied to improve them, may admit of perpetual refinements. No measure of fortune, or degree of skill, is found to diminish the supposed necessities of human life; refinement and plenty foster new desires, while they furnish the means, or practise the methods, to gratify them.