The whole question of success and failure [in photography] resolves itself into an investigation of the capacities of the machine and well may we be satisfied with the rich gifts it bestows, without straining it into a competition with art. For everything for which art, so-called, has hitherto been the means but no the end, photography is the allotted agent – for all that requires mere manual correctness, and mere manual slavery, without any employment of the artistic feeling, she is the proper and therefore the perfect medium. She is made for the present age in which the desire for art resides in a small minority, but the craving, or rather necessity for cheap, prompt, and correct facts in the public at large. Photography is the purveyor of such knowledge to the world. She is sworn witness of everything presented to her view.
