Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple. Impart the same principle or show the same machine to an American or to one of our Colonists, and you will observe that the whole effort of his mind is to find some new application of the principle, some new use for the instrument.
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Quoted in Richard H. Babbage (1948), "The Work of Charles Babbage", 'Annals of the Computation Laboratory of Harvard University, vol. 16
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Excerpt listed online, here: http://www.ed-thelen.org/bab/bab_philosopher.htmlCharles Babbage
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