“When I think of all that man’s and woman’s hand has wrought,” says he, “from the day that Eve put forth her erring hand to pluck the fruit of the forbidden tree to that dark hour when the pierced hands of the Saviour were nailed to the predicted tree of shame, and of all that human hands have wrought of good and evil since, I lift up my hand and gaze upon it with wonder and awe. What an instrument for good it is! What an instrument for evil! And all day long it never is idle. There is no implement which it cannot wield, and it should never in working hours be without one. We unwisely restrict the term handicrafts-man or hand-worker to the more laborious callings; but it belongs to all honest, earnest men and women, and is a title which each should covet. For the queen’s hand there is the sceptre, and for the soldier’s hand the sword; for the carpenter’s hand the saw, and for the smith’s hand the hammer; for the farmer’s hand the plough; for the miner’s hand the spade; for the sailor’s hand the oar; for the painter’s hand the brush; for the sculptor’s hand the chisel; for the poet’s hand the pen; and for woman’s hand the needle. And if none of these, or the like, will fit us, the felon’s chain should be round our wrist, and our hand on the prisoner’s crank. But for each willing man or woman there is a tool they may learn to handle; for all there is the command, ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.’”
XXI
THINKING IN THE ARTS
A meagre soul can never be made fat, nor a narrow soul large, by studying rules of thinking.
Professor Blackie.
Have your thinking first, and plenty to think about, and then ask the logician to teach you to scrutinize with a nice eye the process by which you have arrived at your conclusions.
Professor Blackie.
Invention, though it can be cultivated, cannot be reduced to rule; there is no science which will enable a man to bethink himself of that which will suit his purpose. But when he has thought of something, science can tell him whether that which he has thought of will suit his purpose or not. The inquirer or arguer must be guided by his own knowledge and sagacity in his choice of the inductions out of which he will construct his argument. But the validity of the argument when constructed depends upon principles, and must be tried by tests which are the same for all descriptions of inquiries, whether the result be to give A an estate, or to enrich science with a new general truth.