296 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



the engine produced thirty-three figures every 

 minute, or more than one figure in every two 

 seconds. On another occasion it produced forty- 

 four figures per minute. This rate of computation 

 could be maintained for any length of time ; and 

 it is probable that few writers are able to copy 

 with equal speed for many hours together. 



Some of that class of individuals who envy all 

 great men, and deny all great inventions, have 

 ignorantly stated that Mr. Babbage's invention is 

 not new. The same persons, had it suited their 

 purpose, would have maintained that the inven- 

 tion of spectacles was an anticipation of the 

 telescope ; but even this is more true than the 

 allegation that the arithmetical machines of Pas- 

 cal and others were the types of Mr. Babbage's 

 engine. The object of these machines was 

 entirely different. Their highest functions were 

 to perform the operations of common arithmetic. 

 Mr. Babbage's engine, it is true, can perform 

 these operations also, and can extract the roots of 

 numbers, and approximate to the roots of equa- 

 tions, and even to their impossible roots. But 

 this is not its object. Its function, in contra- 

 distinction to that of all other contrivances for 

 calculating, is to embody in machinery the method 

 of differences, which has never before been done ; 

 and the effects which it is capable of producing, 

 and the works which in the course of a few 

 years we expect to see it execute, will place it at 

 an infinite distance from all other efforts of me- 

 chanical genius.* 



* A popular account of this engine will be found in Mr. 

 Babbage's interesting volume On the Economy of Manufac- 

 tures, lately published. 



