30 INFLUENCE OF' 



Surplus wealth can now be invested, and is so, 

 not in purchasing the fee-simple of a human 

 being, but in the fee-simple of a machine, which 

 relieves man from the severest slavery of labour, 

 and enables the delicate, the feeble, the young, 

 and the infirm, to earn a comfortable livelihood 

 by dexterity of hand, and the ingenious appli- 

 cation of the higher faculties of the mind. 

 Machinery brings into exercise and competition 

 the intelligent powers of man ; mere hand and 

 slave labour engages only his animal force. 



Wealth invested in machinery improves the 

 condition of man, and enlarges his capacities and 

 means of happiness ; but in former days it had 

 the effect of increasing slavery and of debasing 

 the human character. Look even at the present 

 condition of the West India islands, and all those 

 foreign possessions, where machinery has not 

 been introduced to supersede the necessity of 

 human labour, or at least to lighten it. Wealth 

 accumulated there is invested in an increased 

 number of slaves who are stimulated to exertion 

 by the goad, that they may furnish luxuries for 

 their fellow-men. Accumulating wealth in Eng- 

 land is employed in producing comforts, by the 

 aid of machinery, of which all are partakers; 

 in contributing to the advancement of the human 

 mind ; and in making man, what he was intended 



