298 M. Arago on Machinery considered in relation 



debtor, and the great impulse they have given to the labours of 

 industry, as a social calamity. Were we to believe them, the 

 adoption of every new machine inevitably increases the incon- 

 veniences, and adds to the miseries of our artisans. All those 

 wonderful mechanical combinations which we are in the cus- 

 tom of admiring for the regularity and harmony of their move- 

 ments, and for the energy and delicacy of their effects, are, in 

 their opinion, only instruments of evil, which the legislator 

 ought to proscribe with a just and implacable severity. 



Conscientious opinions, and especially when associated with 

 feelings of philanthropy, should ever have a claim to attentive 

 examination. Nay, I will add, that from me such an examina- 

 tion is an imperative duty. I should, in fact, neglect that as- 

 pect of the labours of our illustrious associate which is most 

 worthy of public admiration, were I not, far from subscri- 

 bing to the criticisms of prejudice, to hold up such labours 

 to the attention of men of property, as the means the most 

 powerful, the most direct, and the most efficacious for reliev- 

 ing the operatives of their hardest sufferings, and for making 

 them participate in all the blessings which appeared to be the 

 peculiar inheritance of the rich. 



When we have to make a choice between two propositions 

 which are diametrically opposed to each other — when the one 

 being true, the other must necessarily be false, and when 

 nothing, at the first glance, seems to indicate a rational choice 

 between them, geometricians are in the habit of taking up 



in those works which his Lordship has published, or which have appeared 

 under his patronage. Were I to believe the criticisms which various per- 

 sons have published since the reading of this eloge, I have, in endeavouring 

 to combat the opinion that machinery is injurious to the working classes, 

 been attacking a worn out prejudice which has no longer any real exist- 

 ence. Could I believe this to be the case, I would willingly suppress aU 

 my reasonings, good or bad. But unfortunately, the letters wliich worthy 

 workmen frequently address to me, whether as Academician or Deputy, 

 and still more the dissertations ex professo, and quite recent, of several poli- 

 tical economists, leave me no doubt as to the necessity of affirming now, 

 and of repeating upon every becoming occasion, that macliineiy has never 

 been the real cause of the sufferings of one of the most numerous and inte- 

 resting classes of society ; that its destruction would only aggravate suffer- 

 ing ; and that it is not in this quarter we shall find the remedy for evils, 

 which I regret from the bottom of my heart. 



