746 REPORT— 1894. 



directly measurable, by which we can in some degree form an opinion as to the 

 ultimate fitness of things or processes. 



One set of considerations which has great critical importance is summed up in 

 the word simplicity. This does not mean fewness of parts. Reuleaux showed 

 long ago tliat with machines there was in every case a practical minimum number 

 of parts, any reduction below which was accompanied by serious practical draw- 

 backs. Nor is real simplicity incompatible with considerable apparent complexity. 

 The purpose of machines is becoming continually more complex, and simplicity 

 must not be looked at as absolute, but only in its relation to a particular 

 purpose. There are many very complex-looking pieces of apparatus in existence 

 which work actually so directly along each of tlieir many branch lines as to be in 

 reality simple. I believe it almost always happens that the first attempt to carry 

 out by a machine a new purpose is a very complicated one. It is only by the 

 closest possible examination of the problem, the getting at its very essence, that 

 the machine can be simplified, and this is a late and not an early stage of design. 

 If a mechanical problem is really only soluble by exceedingly complicated appa- 

 ratus, it generally becomes a question whether the solution is worth having. There 

 is no impossibility in making a machine that will do anything. But the very 

 simplest possible form of apparatus which would wash our hands for us in a suit- 

 able manner is probably so very complicated that for many years to come at least 

 that operation will be performed by manual labour. 



Very closely allied to simplicity is what I may call directness. In nearly all 

 mechanical processes certain transformations are unavoidable. In many mechanical 

 processes, as I have recently had occasion to mention, a very large number of trans- 

 formations is at present practically unavoidable. I myself cannot help thinking 

 that probably one of the most distinct signs of fitness is a reduced number of 

 transformations, the bringing of the final and the initial stages as close together as 

 possible, and cutting out altogether the apparently worthless middle processes. 

 But any generalisation of this kind must be very cautiously handled; these 

 apparently useless processes are no doubt in certain cases as indispensable as is the 

 much abused middle-man in matters economic. 



In a critical view of any case where similar results are aimed at by hand work 

 and by mechanical means, it is important to recognise that the similarity of result 

 ehould very seldom become identity. In the first machine to do anything mechani- 

 cally which has before been done by hand, the error is often made of trying to 

 imitate the hand-work rigorously. The first sewing machines were, I believe, 

 made to stitch in the same way as a seamstress. It was not until a form of stitch 

 suitable for a machine, although unsuitable for hand, was devised that the sewing 

 machine proved successful as a practical matter. In another but analogous line, too, 

 you may remember that the first railway carriages were practically stage coaches put 

 upon trucks, from which the present carriages have only very slowly been evolved. 



The critic has also to remember that very often the attainment of some very 

 unimportant point, or point of which the importance has been greatly exaggerated, 

 is made the reason mechanically for very great complication. The question of 

 proportion comes in here again, and it has to be considered in any particular case 

 whether the academically perfect machine, which is also extremely complicated, is 

 not inferior to the almost equally good machine which has been constructed in a 

 practicable shape — it almost always is so. 



I have endeavoured in my remarks to indicate what appears to me to be the 

 attitude of the engineer towards a very large portion of the work which comes 

 into his hands. In order to deal with the work it is necessary for him first of 

 all to have a certain definite knowledge of 'things,' that is to say, both of the 

 various subjects which form part of the curricula of all technical schools, and of 

 the further matters which form as it were his professional alphabet. These last 

 he learns not from books or lectures as a student, but by example and attempt, as 

 does an artist. Of this part of his training I have said nothing ; it has been 

 perhaps sufficiently talked about of late years, and there is little to say which I 

 could have made interesting to a general gathering like this. I cannot leave it 

 altogether, however, without dealing with one matter. Exceptional men are all- 



