Page:The Kinematics of Machinery.djvu/547

 the influence of the introduction of machinery has been almost altogether good. This is the case especially in those industries where the work in its own nature is disagreeable, unhealthy or even degrading. In mining operations, for instance, we can look forward with unmixed pleasure to the substitution of machine labour for much of the work of the colliers, and to the consequent amelioration of the sad social conditions so often associated with their work.

It is remarkable, also, that the place-changing machines, as distinguished from the form-changing machines, have had an influence upon social life which is almost entirely favourable. Railways, steamers, cranes have only to be named to make this recognised. The work of those connected with them may be hard, but it is as a rule healthy, while it demands every day more and not less skill and knowledge on the part of the workman. Of the good which the State as a whole derives from them it is unnecessary to speak.

There is one other characteristic of modern industry as affected by the growth of the machine to which I may direct attention. This is the substitution for  of what I have elsewhere called. The two differ essentially in degree only, but the difference is so marked as to thrust itself upon our notice. This machinofacture appears especially in those cases where many machines have to be made from the same model, or from a limited number of forms in different combinations. In gun-making or in waggon-making, for instance, it has done extraordinary things, and in many other departments, locomotive building among them, it is making rapid progress. We have to thank it, too, for the spread everywhere of cheap and well-made sewing-machines. Reacting upon its source, the growth of machinofacture is accompanied by an increase in a variety and capacity of direct-actors, that is, especially, in the varieties of constrained motion at our command.

The wonderfully quick development of machinofacture which has taken place within the last few years must be ascribed in great measure to the particular direction in which the ideas of inventors have turned, and especially to the fact that they have given up the attempt to copy the operations of the hand or of nature in