Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/19

Rh great difficulties, and I have been unwilling to write upon it, because I do not see my way. I will only here advert to one difficulty. What constitutes an invention? Few simple mechanical contrivances are new; and most combinations may be viewed as species, and classed under genera of more or less generality; and may, in consequence, be pronounced old or new, according to the mechanical knowledge of the person who gives his opinion.

Some of my critics have amused their readers with the wildness of the schemes I have occasionally thrown out; and I myself have sometimes smiled along with them. Perhaps it were wiser for present reputation to offer nothing but profoundly meditated plans, but I do not think knowledge will be most advanced by that course; such sparks may kindle the energies of other minds more favourably circumstanced for pursuing the inquiries. Thus I have now ventured to give some speculations on the mode of blowing furnaces for smelting iron; and even supposing them to be visionary, it is of some importance thus to call the attention of a large population, engaged in one of our most extensive manufactures, to the singular fact, that four-fifths of the steam power used to blow their furnaces actually cools them.

I have collected, with some pains, the criticisms on the first edition of this work, and have availed myself of much information which has been communicated to me by my friends, for the improvement of the present volume. If I have succeeded in expressing what I had to explain with perspicuity, I am aware that much of this clearness is due to my friend, Dr., to whom both the present and the former edition are indebted for such an examination and correction, as an author himself has very rarely the power to bestow.

Nov. 22, 1832.