But even within our own times how greatly has general ignorance retarded the exertions of medical science to diminish suffering and to reduce the amount of mortality! The prejudices against vaccination have rendered it extremely difficult to eradicate small-pox, however certain the result of the great discovery of Jenner. According to the present law, all children, born in England and Wales after August 1, 1853, must be vaccinated at the public expense. Such a law would have been very difficult of execution twenty years ago. The people had then seen the scarred faces from small-pox disappearing amongst them. They had learnt that, at the beginning of this century, vaccination, or the puncture of the skin with matter originally obtained from the cow, was rooting out the small-pox, which used to destroy, not more than a hundred years ago, thirty-six thousand persons annually, in this kingdom. But yet they had prejudices. No medical man would practise inoculation—a great blessing in its day—because the disease was thus kept amongst us. But still many ignorant persons did not avail themselves of the law passed fourteen years ago, under which their children might be vaccinated at the public cost. The undoubted testimony of the whole medical profession proves that vaccination in almost all cases prevents small-pox, and in all cases mitigates its evil. But that testimony further proves that if vaccination were universal, small-pox would wholly disappear; and that is the reason why vaccination is now compulsory.
But we may regard the influences of knowledge upon the direction and aid of profitable labour, even from a higher point of view. The sciences and arts cannot be carried forward except in a country where the laws of God are respected, where justice is upheld; where intellect generally is cultivated, and taste is diffused. The religious and moral teacher, therefore, who lifts the mind to a contemplation of the duties of man, as they are founded upon a belief in the Providence of an all-wise and all-powerful Creator, is a profitable labourer. The instructor of the young, who dedicates his time to advancing the formation of right principles, and the acquirement of sound knowledge, by his pupils, is a profitable labourer. The writer who applies his understanding to the discovery and dissemination of moral and political truth, is a profitable labourer. The interpreter and administrator of the laws, who upholds the reign of order and security, defending the innocent, punishing the guilty, and vindicating the rights of all from outrage and oppression, is a profitable labourer. These labourers, it may be said, are still direct producers of utility, but that those who address themselves to the imagination—the poets, the novelists, the painters, and the musicians—in every polished society, are unprofitable labourers. One word is sufficient for an answer. These men advance the general intellect of a country, and they therefore indirectly advance the production of articles of necessity. We have already shown how the study of the higher mathematics, upon which astronomy is founded, has an influence upon the production of a piece of woollen cloth; and we beg our readers to bear this connection in mind when they hear it said, as they sometimes may, that an abstract student, or an elegant writer, is not a producer,—is, in fact, an idler. The most illustrious writers of every country, the great poets,
"High notions and high passions best describing,"
have, next to the inspirations of religion, lifted mankind, more than any other class of intellectual workmen, to their noblest pursuits of knowledge and virtue. Even those who especially devote themselves to give pleasure and amusement, call into action some of the highest and purest sources of enjoyment. They lead the mind to seek its recreations in more ennobling pursuits than those of sensuality; their arts connect themselves by a thousand associations with all that is beautiful in the natural world; they are as useful for the promotion of pure and innocent delight as the flowers that gladden us by their beauty and fragrance by the side of the corn that nourishes us. An entire community of poets and artists would be as unprofitable as if an entire country were dedicated to the cultivation of violets and roses; but the poets and the artists may, as the roses and the violets, furnish the graces and ornaments of life, without injury, and indeed with positive benefit, to the classes who more especially dedicate themselves to what is somewhat exclusively called the production of utility. The right direction of the talents which are dedicated to art and literature is all that is required from those who address themselves to these pursuits. He, therefore, who beguiles a vacant hour of its tediousness, by some effort of intellect which captivates the imagination without poisoning the morals,—and he who by the exercise of his art produces forms of beauty which awaken in the mind that principle of taste which, more than any other faculty, requires cultivation,—have each bestowed benefits upon the world which may be accurately enough measured even by the severe limitations of political economy;—they are profitable labourers and benefactors of their species.
The positive influence of the labours of the poet and the artist upon the advance of other labour might be easily shown. In their productions, especially, supply goes before demand, and creates demand. It has been calculated by an American writer, that the number of workmen who have been set in action—paper-makers, printers, binders—by the writings of Sir Walter Scott alone, in all countries, would, if gathered together, form a community that would fill a large town. The Potteries of Etruria, in Staffordshire, could not have existed unless Mr. Wedgwood had introduced into our manufacture of china the forms of Grecian art, bequeathed to us by the taste of two thousand years ago, and thus created a demand which has furnished profitable labour to thousands. There are four thousand musical-instrument makers in Great Britain. What has given their industry its chief impulse? The divine art of Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Rossini, Mendelsohn. If these great composers, and many others, had not raised music into something higher and more capable of producing enjoyment than the rude melodies of uncivilized tribes, there would have been no trade in pianofortes.
Sir Walter Scott. From Sir F. Chantrey's Bust.
We have entered into these details, principally to show that there are other and higher producers in society than the mere manual labourers. It was an ignorant fashion amongst the mental labourers of other days to despise the class of the physical labourers. They have learnt to know their value; and there should be a reciprocal knowledge. Both classes are working-classes. No one can say that the mental labourers are not workers. They are, we may truly affirm, taken as a class, the hardest workers in the community. No one ever reached eminence in these pursuits without unwearied industry: the most eminent have been universally despisers of ease and sloth, and have felt their highest pleasures in the absorbing devotion of their entire minds to the duties of their high calling. They have wooed Knowledge as a mistress that could not be won without years of unwearied assiduity. The most eminent, too, have been practical men, despising no inquiry, however trifling it might appear to common eyes, and shrinking from no occupation, however tedious, as long as it was connected with their higher duties.