Book Description

Excerpt from An Essay Upon National Character, Vol. 2 of 2: Being an Inquiry Into Some of the Principal Causes Which Contribute to Form and Modify the Characters of Nations in the State of Civilisation Part I. On the Causes which develop and modify Industry among Nations. The state of literature, of science, of the fine arts, is gene rally considered as the most direct standard by which intel lect can be measured, and in cultivated individuals this may be held as sufficiently correct; but large bodies of men must beexamined in more complicated points of view, and the relations in which the members of a community stand toward each other, are juster measures of the understanding of nations. Thus government forms a more leading feature in national character and intellect than mathematics, poetry, or painting; and a well-constituted empire presents a larger phalanx of well-combined force, than one which swarms with artists and astronomers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.