Life of Count Rumford. 399 



to the comprehensive designs of the new society. He 

 urges, at the start, the forcible truth, that it has been 

 by the aid of machinery in procuring the necessaries, 

 the comforts, and the elegances of life that all the 

 successive improvements have been, made in the con- 

 dition of man, from a state of ignorance and barbarism 

 up to that of the highest cultivation and refinement, 

 and that the stage of civilization is relatively to be 

 judged by the state of industry and mechanical im- 

 provements among a people. In illustration of this 

 truth, he refers to the experience of all ages and places, 

 and to the differences observable in various nations, 

 provinces, towns, and even villages, as flourishing and 

 populous according to the measure of the activity of 

 their industry. Exertion quickens the spirit of inven- 

 tion, makes science flourish, and increases the moral 

 and physical powers of man. Thus the printing-press, 

 the art of navigation, " the astonishing effects of gun- 

 powder," and the steam-engine, have changed the course 

 of human affairs, and wrought influences the effects of 

 which are incalculable for the future, though willing 

 ignorance would have derided these inventions as im- 

 possible, or rejected them as unnecessary. In proceed- 

 ing to point out the causes which impede progress, and 

 to invite the public to engage in efforts to advance it, 

 he enlarges upon some of the views already presented in 

 the Proposals. He refers to the causes of the slowness, 

 indifference, and jealousy under which improvements 

 makt their way, and specifies the influence of habit, 

 ignorance, prejudice, suspicion, dislike of change, and 

 the narrowing effect of the subdivision of work into 

 many petty occupations. The scorn of improvement, 

 the greed for wealth, the spirit of monopoly and of 



