Excerpt from Illustrations of Useful Arts and Manufactures The Useful Arts originated in the necessities of man's nature which required food, clothing, shelter, warmth, arti ficial light, and thousands of comforts and conveniences, many of which, commencing perhaps with luxuries confined to the few, came in the course of time to. Be necessaries claimed by the many. AS men lived in societies, sub division of labour would naturally arise; one set of men would confine their attention to the production or prepara tion of one article only in course of time they would not only become very skilful in their handicraft, a word which itself implies skill of hand, but they would also, by constant trials and repeated failures, hit upon the best means and materials for bringing about a certain result. Thus would originate an art, or trade, or mystery, terms which imply the first, skill, the second, use, or experience, (le. Trodden, or frequently gone over, ) and the third, secrets, known only to the initiated, and only to be revealed to the apprentice in the course of his seven years' teaching. 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.