MANUAL WORK. 367 



science nor trained engineers have invented, 

 or brought to perfection, the prime motors and 

 all that mass of machinery which has revolu- 

 tionised industry for the last hundred years. 

 But since the great factory has been enthroned, 

 the worker, depressed by the monotony of his 

 work, invents no more. What can a weaver 

 invent who merely supervises four looms, with- 

 out knowing anything either about their com- 

 plicated movements or how the machines grew 

 to be what they are ? What can a man 

 invent who is condemned for life to bind to- 

 gether the ends of two threads with the greatest 

 celerity, and knows nothing beyond making a 

 knot ? 



" At the outset of modern industry, three 

 generations of workers have invented ; now 

 they cease to do so. As to the inventions of 

 the engineers, specially trained for devising 

 machines, they are either devoid of genius or 

 not practical enough. Those ' nearly to noth- 

 ings,' of which Sir Frederick Bramwell spoke 

 once at Bath, are missing in their inventions 

 those nothings which can be learned in the 

 workshop only, and which permitted a Murdoch 

 and the Soho workers to make a practical 

 engine of Watt's schemes. None but he who 

 knows the machine not in its drawings and 

 models only, but in its breathing and throbbings 



