624 



MACHINERY. 



that gentleman, and carried on what is called a 

 West India business, under the firm of M'Gavin 

 and Lamb. This ultimately proving unprofitable, 

 he was induced, in 1822, to undertake the Glasgow 

 agency of the British Linen Company's bank, 

 which he conducted without intermission till his 

 death. Being a man of uncommon industry, and 

 equally great benevolence, Mr M'Gavin found time, 

 amidst his numerous mercantile avocations, to write 

 a number of religious tracts and stories, for the 

 improvement of the poorer and junior classes of 

 society. Though these productions are of a class 

 which do not usually attain a high place in litera- 

 ture, no reader, however indifferent to the subjects, 

 or of however highly cultivated intellect, could 

 peruse them, without remarking the extraordinary 

 conciseness of style and moral force by which they 

 are characterized. The most distinguished of all 

 Mr M'Gavin's writings is his " Protestant," a 

 series of papers, designed to expose the errors of 

 the church of Rome, commenced in 1818, and 

 finished in 1822. These obtained a high degree 

 of celebrity at the time of their publication, and 

 are still held in great estimation. In 1827, he 

 superintended a new and improved edition of ' 

 " The Scots Worthies," to which he added notes, i 

 He soon after published a refutation of the peculiar 

 views of Mr Cobbett in his History of the Refor- 

 mation ; and a similar exposure of the principles 

 of Mr Robert Owen. He also published a pamph- 

 let, entitled " Church Establishments considered : 

 in a Series of Letters to a Covenanter." Not long 

 before his death, he superintended a new and im- 

 proved edition of Knox's History of the Reforma- 

 tion ; and aided with an introduction, a work by 

 the Rev. Mr John Brown of Whitburn, entitled 

 " Memorials of the Nonconformist Ministers of 

 the Seventeenth Century." In the midst of his 

 divers labours, he suddenly died of apoplexy, Aug. 

 23, 1832. 



MACHINERY, EFFECTS OF, (a. to article 

 Labour-Saving Machines.') In the earliest ages of 

 society, machinery was unknown. Man was 

 created in a climate where the earth yielded boun- 

 tifully at all seasons of the year, her productions 

 for his use. Then, his only labour was to gather 

 from nature's abundant store, the supply of his 

 present want. Afterwards, be began to cultivate 

 the soil, and then, probably, some simple instru- 

 ment of culture was invented. At a still later 

 period, his Creator invested him with dominion over 

 the life of living creatures ; and, to enable himself 

 to exercise this new authority, he invented, also, 

 rude instruments of hunting and fishing. These 

 are all arts of absolute necessity. Without them, 

 man could not exist, except in the mildest climates, 

 and there only in small numbers. Beyond these 

 arts, a large proportion of the human race have 

 made no great advances. The only additional skill, 

 yet attained by many tribes of the human family, 

 the skill to make rude clothing and to build rude 

 huts to protect them from the inclemency of the 

 weather, has been taught them by stern necessity. 

 In their circumstances, each individual of the so- 

 ciety must labour for his own subsistence, and all 

 hope of intellectual or moral improvement seems 

 entirely cut off. 



From time to time, however, in different parts 

 of the world, there have been communities, which 

 have risen far above this condition. Assyria, 

 Persia, Egypt, Greece and Rome felt, by turns, the 

 genial-influence of improvement. And it is worthy 



of iinKii'k, that, wherever, over tlie whole earth, 

 the light of civilization has once dawned, some 

 rays of that light linger yet, the utter darkness 

 of absolute barbarism has never returned. It can- 

 not wholly return. The law of man's nature, im- 

 pressed on him by his God, is onward progress; 

 and let a nation but once rise into the light of 

 civilization, and then, however low ad verse circum- 

 stances may afterwards thrust them down, they will 

 never sink into utter night, nor will they ever cease 

 to strive to re-ascend to day. It is also worthy of 

 remark, as illustrative of this law, that these na- 

 tions made different degrees of progress, and that 

 each advanced farther in improvement than the pre- 

 ceding. The light shone faintest, where it first 

 dawned, on Assyria, its brightest effulgence il- 

 luminated Rome. It was a progressive illumina- 

 tion, faint and hardly perceptible at first, then 

 gradually receiving greater and greater accessions 

 of splendour. Now in our day, it has flashed out 

 into a broad, bright, and glorious effulgence, encom- 

 passing and illuminating more than half the globe. 

 Civilization never takes place without the ac- 

 cumulation of the material products of labour. 

 Different causes may produce this accumulation. 

 The hand of violence may gather the spoils of ra- 

 pine, and manual labour or mechanical contrivance 

 may heap up the store of industry. The two first 

 of these causes, but more particularly the first, 

 procured an abundance of the necessaries and 

 luxuries of life to the states of antiquity; and 

 were, therefore, the principal agents in the work 

 of civilizing those states. Mechanical contrivance 

 exerted a similar, but, at first, almost imperceptible 

 influence, increasing the stores of wealth, and thus 

 helping forward the progress of civilization. The 

 experiment of machinery, however, as a substitute 

 for human labour, employed in producing and ir - 

 creasing the comforts of life, was never tried on a 

 great scale by the nations of antiquity. That was 

 reserved to be the distinction of modern times. 

 The glory of compelling the powers of nature into 

 the service of man, was destined to grace our own 

 age. And, as the spoils of these bloodless vic- 

 tories have been far greater than ancient conquest 

 ever gained, as the accumulation of wealth, by 

 the new agents that have been employed in the 

 task, has been far more rapid than was ever known 

 in former times, through the instrumentality of any 

 agent whatever, so civilization has, in these latter 

 days, spread far more widely, and penetrated much 

 more deeply, than ever before ; reaching, not one 

 nation only, but many, and bestowing its invaluable 

 benefits, not upon a favoured portion merely, but 

 upon the whole of society. We would not say, that 

 machinery has been the only efficient agent of modern 

 civilization. We do not so believe. There have been 

 moral agents at work. They have effected much ; but 

 without the aid of machinery, they could not have 

 effected much. What we claim for machinery is, 

 that it is in modern times by far the most efficient 

 physical cause of human improvement ; that it 

 does for civilization, what conquest and human 

 labour formerly did, and accomplishes incalculably 

 more than they accomplished. And how different 

 are the characters of these three agents 1 War, 

 the direst curse of humanity, must necessarily pre- 

 cede conquest; and the structure of civilization, 

 reared by this agent, rises upon the spoil, the deso- 

 lation, and the anguish of the vanquished. Human 

 labour, when urged to excessive efforts, must 

 necessarily, to a considerable extent, prevent intel 





