Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/35



object of the present volume is to point out the effects and the advantages which arise from the use of tools and machines, to endeavour to classify their modes of action; and to trace both the causes and the consequences of applying machinery to supersede the skill and power of the human arm.

A view of the mechanical part of the subject will, in the first instance, occupy our attention, and to this the first section of the work will be devoted. The first chapter of the section will contain some remarks on the general sources from whence the advantages of machinery are derived, and the succeeding nine chapters will contain a detailed examination of principles of a less general character. The eleventh chapter contains numerous subdivisions, and is important from the extensive classification it affords of the arts in which copying is so largely