62 Mr. H. Wilde on the Indefinite Quantitative 



balance used for weighing gold, copied from one of these 

 tombs. 



That unequal weights balance each other, and that an 

 indefinitely small weight or mechanical force will balance 

 and overcome the greatest, are propositions antithetical to 

 the preceding, which, before the discovery of the properties 

 of the lever, would be justly considered as false. This 

 proposition, which is now regarded as axiomatic, has its 

 most striking demonstration in the modern compound 

 weighing-machine, wherein the weight of a few pounds, 

 acting through a series of levers, will balance another 

 weight of many tons. 





Fig. i. 



In the historical development of machines for weighing, 

 it will be obvious that the simple balance preceded the 

 steel-yard and the compound-lever machine ; the latter 

 inventions being the product of a higher order of intelli- 

 gence than the former. 



It is difficult to realise the vast importance of the 

 lever (irrespective of its function in the mechanism of 

 animal life) in its several orders and forms as an agent of 

 civilisation. Without this power cities could not be built, 

 nor engineering works of any magnitude be constructed. 

 The numerous arts of life would have no existence, and 

 man could never have risen from his primitive savage 

 condition to a higher scale of being. The reputed saying 



