251 
Mr. Babbage on a method of expressing , &c. 
necessary trace back the sources of its movement through 
all its successive stages to the original moving power. I 
soon felt that the forms of ordinary language were far too 
diffuse to admit of any expectation of removing the difficulty, 
and being convinced from experience of the vast power 
which analysis derives from the great condensation of mean- 
ing in the language it employs, I was not long in deciding 
that the most favourable path to pursue was to have recourse 
to the language of signs. It then became necessary to con- 
trive a notation which ought if possible to be at once simple 
and expressive, easily understood at the commencement, 
and capable of being readily retained in the memory from 
the proper adaptation of the signs to the circumstances they 
were intended to represent. The first thing to be done was 
obviously to make an accurate enumeration of all the moving 
parts, and to appropriate a name to each ; the multitude of 
different contrivances in various machinery, precluded all 
idea of substituting signs for these parts. They were there- 
fore written down in succession, only observing to preserve 
such an order that those which jointly concur for accom- 
plishing the effect of any separate part of the machine might 
be found situated near to each other: thus in a clock, those 
parts which belong to the striking part ought to be placed 
together, whilst those by which the repeating part operates 
ought, although kept distinct, yet to be as a whole, adjacent 
to the former part. 
Each of these names is attached to a faint line which runs 
longitudinally down the page, and which may for the sake 
of reference be called its indicating line. 
The next object was to connect the notation with the 
