372 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



perfectly flat beds for various purposes, serves also for pro 

 ducing true lathe-beds, is an appliance one step further back 

 behind appliances. A steam-hammer still better illustrates 

 these relations. It is useless for the immediate satisfaction 

 of any human want. It is useless for the direct production 

 of things that immediately help to satisfy human wants. 

 But the vast masses of iron which it pounds into approxi 

 mately fit shapes, will presently be made into parts of ma 

 chines. And even these machines will subserve human 

 wants only in an indirect w T ay, w T hen helping to make things 

 which help to subserve human wants. 



Any one who takes up a trades directory, or such a peri 

 odical as The Ironmonger , and in this last glances through 

 the illustrated advertisements, will be astonished at the ex 

 tent to which production is now dependent upon auxiliary 

 production of one, two, or three stages of remoteness from 

 the ultimate products wanted. 



