THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 269 



its innumerable products and processes, but also the slowly-moulded 

 moral and intellectual natures of masters and workmen. Has nothing: 

 now been forgotten ? Yes, we have left out a whole division of all- 

 iinportant social phenomena those which we group as the progress 

 of knowledge. Along with the many other developments that have 

 been necessary antecedents to this machine, there has been the develop- 

 ment of Science. The growing and improving arts of all kinds have 

 been helped up, step after step, by those generalized experiences, be- 

 coming ever wider, more complete, more exact, which make up what 

 we call Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, etc. Without a consider- 

 ably developed Geometry, there could never have been the machines 

 for making machines ; still less this machine that has proceeded from 

 them. Without a developed Physics, there would have been no steam- 

 engine to move these various automatic appliances, primary and sec- 

 ondary ; nor would the many implied metallurgic processes have been 

 brought to the needful perfection. And, in the absence of a developed 

 Chemistry, many of the requirements, direct and indirect, could not 

 have been adequately fulfilled. So that, in fact, this organization of 

 knowledge which began with civilization had to reach something like 

 its present stage, before such a machine could come into existence, 

 supposing all other prerequisites to be satisfied. Surely we have 

 now got to the end of the history. Not quite ; there yet remains an 

 essential factor. No one goes on year after year spending thou- 

 sands of pounds, and much time, and persevering through disappoint- 

 ment and anxiety, without a strong motive : the " Walter Press " was 

 not a mere tour deforce. Why, then, was it produced ? To meet an 

 immense demand with great promptness to print, with one machine, 

 16,000 copies per hour. Whence arises this demand ? From an exten- 

 sive reading public, brought in the course of generations to have a 

 keen morning-appetite for news of all kinds merchants who need to 

 know the latest prices at home and the latest telegrams from abroad ; 

 politicians who must learn the result of last night's division, be informed 

 of the latest diplomatic move, and read the speeches at a meeting ; 

 sporting-men who look for the odds and the result of yesterday's race ; 

 ladies who want to see the births, marriages, and deaths. And, on 

 asking the origin of these many desires to be satisfied, they prove to 

 be concomitants of our social state in general its trading, political, 

 philanthropic, and other activities ; for, in societies where these are not 

 dominant, the demand for news of various kinds rises to no such inten- 

 sity. See, then, how enormously involved is the genesis of this ma- 

 chine, as a sociological phenomenon. A whole encyclopaedia of 

 mechanical inventions some dating from the earliest times go to 

 the explanation of it. Thousands of years of discipline, by which the 

 impulsive, improvident nature of the savage has been evolved into a 

 comparatively self-controlling nature, capable of sacrificing present 

 ease to future good, are presupposed. There is presupposed the 



