MANUFACTURE OP BOOKS. 415 



the very small number of rich men who could indulge in 

 this expensive fancy. One of these copyists being able 

 by the aid of the new proceeding to do the work of two 

 hundred, there were not wanting men in that epoch who 

 dubbed the new invention as infernal, as about to reduce 

 to inaction, in a certain rank of society, nine hundred 

 and ninety-five men out of one thousand. But let us 

 now place the real result by the side of the sinister pre- 

 diction. 



Manuscript books were very little in demand ; printed 

 books, on the contrary, on account of their low price, 

 were sought after with the most lively eagerness. It 

 was found necessary incessantly to reproduce the Greek 

 and Roman authors. New ideas, new opinions occa- 

 sioned a multitude of new books to arise ; some of eternal 

 interest, others inspired by passing events. At last it 

 was calculated that in London, before the invention of 

 printing, the book trade employed only two hundred 

 men, now they are counted by twenty thousand. 



And how mu*h more would it be if, laying aside the con- 

 fined, and I might say material, point of view that I have 

 had to select, we were to estimate printing by its moral 

 and intellectual phases ; if we were to examine the influ- 

 ence that it exerted on public manners, on the diffusion 

 of public knowledge, on the progress of human reason ; 

 if we were to work out the enumeration of the many 

 books for which we are indebted to printing, that the 

 copyists would certainly have disdained, and in which 

 genius yet goes daily gathering the elements of its fruit- 

 ful conceptions ? But I must keep in mind that at 

 present we have only to treat of the number of work- 

 men employed by each branch of industry. 



That of cotton offers even more demonstrative results 



