CHARLES BABBAGE. 171 



bility or utility, some justification might be found for tlie course which 

 has been taken ; but I venture to assert that no mathematician who has 

 a reputation to lose will ever puhlicly express an opinion that such a 

 machine woukl be useless if made, and that no man distinguished as a 

 pivil engineer will venture to declare the construction of such machinery 

 impracticable." 



It seemed now (1852) as if there were a probability that government 

 would order a resumption of the work. The Earl of Derby was a man 

 of large gifts and extended views, aud his chancellor of the exchequer, 

 himself the son of a philosopher, was known as widely almost by his 

 philosophic sentiments as by his great powers of debate. The country 

 was at peace. The first exhibition of the whole world's industry had by 

 its marvelous success the previous year given a new impulse to the arts. 

 Politics, indeed, ran high, but in every other aspect there was encourage- 

 ment. The Eoyal Society ; the Society of Civil Engineers ; the Eoyal 

 Academy of Sciences, at Brussels ; the principal philosophical mechan- 

 ists of the three kingdoms, led by the Earl of Rosse and Sir Benjamin 

 Hawes ; the astronomical observers following in the bold path opened 

 by Sir John Herschel ; and Prince Albert, the most accomplished, as he 

 was the most judicious, of thinking men ; together with Plana, Menabria, 

 MacCullagh, Mosotti, Plantamoiu", Dr. Lardner, and Lady Lovelace — 

 this last an example, almost equal to that of Mrs. Somerville, of the 

 })0wer sometimes possessed by the female mind in dealing with abstract 

 truths — all gave the weight of their opinion in favor of the difference 

 engine, when completed, as fully adequate to the attainment of the 

 objects proposed by the inventor. " ISTo enterprise," said the president 

 of the Royal Society, when reciting the history of the engine at their 

 anniversary in 1854 — " no enterprise could have had its beginning under 

 more auspicious circumstances. The government had taken the initia- 

 tive ; they had called for advice, and the adviser was the highest scien- 

 tific authority in this country — your council guided by such men as 

 Derby, Wollaston, and Herschel. By your council the undertaking was 

 inaugurated ; by your council it was watched over in its progress. That 

 the first great effort to employ the powers of calculating mechanism, in 

 aid of the human intellect should have been sutfered in this great 

 country to expire fruitless because there was no tangible evidence of 

 immediate profit, as a British subject I deeply regret, and as a fellow 

 my regret is accompanied with feelings of bitter disappointment. Where 

 a question has once been disposed of, succeeding governments rarely 

 re-open it ; still, I thought I should not be doing my duty if I did not 

 take some opportunity of briuging the facts once more before govern- 

 ment." 



This was accordingly done. It was shown that mechanical engineer- 

 ing, tools, trained workmen, the founder's art; and screw-cutting ma- 

 chines, had made such progress during the years the difference-engine 

 had been laid aside that it was probable persons could be found willing 



