[Photography] 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 the sworn witness of everything presented to her view... her business is to give evidence of facts, as minutely and as impartially as, to our shame, only an unreasoning machine can give.