Page:The Kinematics of Machinery.djvu/223

 CHAPTER VI.

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF MACHINE DEVELOPMENT.

�" How many creations of Art, how many wonders of Industry, what light in every field of Knowledge, since man ceased to waste his powers improfitably in a weary struggle for existence, since he became master of his own destiny, making terms with that necessity which he could never entirely escape ; since he attained to the dearly- bought privilege of freedom to rule his own faculties to follow the call of his genius. What eager activity everywhere, since multiplied wants gave new wings to the spirit of Invention, and opened up new fields for Industry !" SCHILLER.

"In possession of the idea of World - development History no longer lies within a bounded horizon, it no longer repeats the self-same story in wearisome iteration century after century. In its unmeasured depth one form of existence follows another, Nature reveals to us its infinite succession of wonders, and the soul rises up in heavenly majesty, and with mighty wing-strokes speeds through the GEIGEK.

�8 48.

The Origin and Early Growth of Machines.

THE investigations which have occupied us in the last two chapters have led us involuntarily to a subject which certainly does not appear to be necessarily connected with a deductive theory of machinery ; which, however, concerning as it does the manner in which the machine idea originated in the minds of men, claims our

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