386 THE REIGN OF LAW. 



It is a history which illustrates in the clearest 

 light, the sense in which human conduct, both 

 individually and collectively, is determined by 

 Natural Law. If Watt's Steam Engine had been 

 invented earlier — if mills had not been at first 

 erected away from the centres of population, in 

 order to follow the course of streams — if conse- 

 quently the evils of the Factory system had not 

 begun to be observable in the labour of Appren- 

 tices, there is no saying how much longer those 

 evils might have been allowed to fester without 

 even an assertion of the right to check them. 

 The Act of 1802,* though useless in every other 

 sense, was invaluable at least in making this 

 assertion. 



Meanwhile, Watt's great invention had been 

 completed. And now a new cycle of events began, 

 arising by way of natural consequence out of the 

 Reign of Law. When the perfected Steam Engine 

 became applicable to mills, it was no longer always 

 cheaper to erect them in rural districts ; on the 

 contrary, it was often cheaper to have them in the 

 towns, near a full supply of labour, and a cheap 

 * 42 and 43 Geo. III., cap. 73. 



