May 1, 1864] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



ON GRANITE AND IT8 USES. 441 



insufficiently fed and clothed, that they willbe aged at fifty, and retain 

 only vitality sufficient to rot slowly away in workhouses till they 

 fall into their graves. 



Think of this woeful multitude of sufferers and sinners whom the 

 miseries of their bodies daily drive into the commission of terrible 

 crimes, and judge whether industrial science can wrong religion by feed- 

 ing, and clothing, and healing, and employing so inglorious an army of 

 tin willing martyrs to the cause of imperfect civilisation ! 



Wealth and luxury are assuredly not less fruitful parents of crime 

 than poverty and hunger, and if the criminals are fewer, they are often 

 all the blacker, and they are few only because riches and leisure cannot 

 be the endowment of many. But industrial science is as little responsi- 

 ble for the crimes of the rich as for the crimes of the poor. The fault 

 of both is, that they are not industrial. The poor cannot work ; the 

 rich will not work ; and both pay the penalty of idleness, which, whether 

 voluntary or involuntary, is always punished in a world of which the 

 law is Labour. 



I think, then, that industrialism is no enemy of religion. I believe 

 that it is most ready to be its handmaid. But let me add that, in itself 

 industrial science is neither religious nor irreligious. It is simply 

 embodied power, innocent of either good or evil intentions ; as ready to 

 make gunpowder as to make chloroform ; as willing to cast iron into 

 bomb-shells as into household grates ; and no more interested in distil- 

 ling an elixir of life than in concentrating the most subtle poison. 



The often-quoted declaration of Bacon, that "knowledge is power," 

 is especially true in reference to industrial science, if you take the 

 aphorism without any qualification. Knowledge is power, and only 

 power. It is not love ; it is not hate ; it is not virtue ; it is not vice ; 

 it is not mercy ; it is not justice ; and least of all is it revenge. It has 

 not a soft touch or a gentle look, a kind heart or a pitying ear. It has 

 only a clear eye and a strong hand. Its symbol is the steam-hammer, 

 to which it is equally indifferent, whether it is forging shapeless iron 

 into goodly merchant ships, or crushing goodly merchant ships into 

 shapeless iron. Industrial science is thus as free to the religious as 

 to the irreligious, and is alike the blind instrument of both. Whether 

 it shall produce evil or good depends on those by whom it is guided, 

 and the business of the Christian is not to flee from it, as Moses fled at 

 first from his wonder-working rod, because it put on the aspect of the 

 subtle, terrible, malignant serpent, but to stretch forth his hand and 

 take it, and hold it up before men as a sceptre which, wisely used, will 

 compel the earth to obey the will of God. 



I would compare industrial technology to one of the tribes of Israel, 

 among which the Land of Promise was divided. I would not compare 

 it to the lion-like Judah, or to Benjamin the ravening wolf, or to 

 Napthali, the hind let loose, or to Dan the biting serpent, or to Joseph 

 the fruitful bough, but to the lowliest of them all, who, yoxi will 



