MR. BABBAGES CALCULATING MACHINE. 345 



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 opera- 

 tions also, and can extract the roots of numbers, and 

 approximate to the roots of equations, and even to their 

 impossible roots. But this is not its object. Its 

 function, in contradistinction to that of all other contriv- 

 ances 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 mechanical genius.* 



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

 interesting volume On the Economy of Manufactures. 



2 A 



