Page:Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century.djvu/82

 declined purchasing. Notwithstanding this bad break, the Government were willing to proceed; and the construction was actually in an advanced state. Among the workmen discharged by Clement was Joseph (afterwards Sir Joseph) Whitworth who later amassed a fortune by utilizing as a mechanical engineer the training which he got from Babbage.

While the work was suspended owing to change of workshop, Babbage experimented much with the portion of the engine which had been assembled; and his inventive mind conceived the idea of a much more general machine which he called an Analytical Engine. He immediately set to work to plan how it could be realized, and he considered that he had hit upon a much simpler mechanical invention for adding than the one adopted in the Difference Engine. Unfortunately instead of proceeding to complete the Difference Engine as the plans adopted and followed for ten years, as the Government desired him to do, he waited for an opportunity to explain about his new invention. However superior his new ideas might be, he ought to have perceived that the heads of the Government—and that Government frequently changing—were not capable of appreciating their value, and that they would judge of the matter from the business point of view, saying "You wish us to abandon the construction of an engine which has cost £17,000 and wish us to undertake a new and more elaborate engine; we cannot justify such expenditure to the House of Commons."

It was very unfortunate that Babbage did not see the practical necessity of completing the first engine on the plans adopted. By the course he adopted he gave his scientific enemies a chance to defeat the realization of his great invention. The matter was not finally settled until 1842—nine years after the construction was suspended. He was then informed by the Premier and the Chancellor of the Exchequer that they abandoned the undertaking, and that he might have what had been constructed for his own property. Babbage declined to accept it; the portion assembled was placed in a museum; the loose parts sold or melted down. Babbage appears to have thought that