Excerpt from The Lost Arts I, perhaps, might venture to claim that it was a medicine for what is the most objectionable feature of our national character; and that is self-conceit, an un due appreciation of ourselves, an exaggerated estimate of our achievements, of our inventions, of our contribu tions to popular comfort, and of our place, in fact, in the great procession of the ages. We seem to imagine, that whether knowledge will die with us, or not, it certainly began with us. We have a pitying estimate, a tender pity, for the narrowness, ignorance, and dark ness of the bygone ages. We seem to ourselves not only to monopolize, but to have begun, the era of light. 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.