z68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



preceding complex automatic tools of various kind, that cooperated 

 to make their component parts each larger, or more accurate, lathe 

 or planing-machine having been made possible by preexisting lathes 

 and planing-machines, inferior in size or exactness. And so if he 

 traces back the whole contents of the machine-shop, with its many- 

 different instruments, he comes in course of time to the blacksmith's 

 hammer and anvil, and even, eventually, to still ruder appliances. 

 The explanation is now completed, he thinks. Not at all. No such 

 process as that which the " Walter Press " shows us was possible 

 until there had been invented, and slowly perfected, a paper-machine 

 capable of making miles of paper without break. Thus there is the 

 genesis of the paper-machine involved, and that of the multitudinous 

 appliances and devices that preceded it, and are at present implied 

 by it. Have we now got to the end of the matter? No ; we have just 

 glanced at one group of the antecedents. All this development of 

 mechanical appliances this growth of the iron-manufacture, this 

 extensive use of machinery made from iron, this production of so 

 many machines for making machines has had for one of its causes 

 the abundance of the raw materials, coal and iron; has had for 

 another of its causes the insular position which has favored peace 

 and the increase of industrial activity. There have been moral causes 

 at work too. Without that readiness to sacrifice present ease to 

 future benefit, which is implied by enterprise, there would not only 

 have never arisen the machine in qixestion, but there would never 

 have arisen the multitudinous improved instruments and processes 

 that have made it possible. And, beyond the moral traits which 

 enterprise presupposes, there are those presupposed by efficient 

 cooperation. Without mechanical engineers who fulfilled their con- 

 tracts tolerably well, by executing work accurately, neither this 

 machine itself nor the machines that made it could have been pro- 

 duced; and, without artisans having considerable conscientiousness, 

 no master could insure accurate work. Try to get such products out 

 of an inferior race, and you will find defective character an insuper- 

 able obstacle. So, too, will you find defective intelligence an insuper- 

 able obstacle. The skilled artisan is not an accidental product, either 

 morally or intellectually. The intelligence needed for making a new 

 thing is not everywhere to be found ; nor is there everywhere to be 

 found the accuracy of perception and nicety of execution without 

 which no complex machine can be so made that it will act. Exact- 

 ness of finish in machines has developed pari passu with exactness of 

 perception in artisans. Inspect some mechanical appliance made a 

 century ago, and you may see that, even had all other requisite con- 

 ditions been fulfilled, want of the requisite skill in workmen would 

 have been a fatal obstacle to the production of an engine requiring so 

 many delicate adjustments. So that there are implied in this mechan- 

 ical achievement, not only our slowly-generated industrial state, with 



