ECONOMY OF MACHINERY AND MANUFACTURES.
The volume lately published by Mr. Babbage, with the above title, is, without exception, one of the most practical works ever produced in this or any other country. To our minds, it is beyond all price, and, as illustrating the arts of life and society, it is, to use a very homely phrase, worth its weight in gold. The proposition may be a whimsical one, but we doubt whether a mass of gold, of the same dimensions as Mr. Babbage's volume, could be made to diffuse more happiness and real enjoyment than the right understanding and application of the principles illustrated in its pages. Theory and practice, proposition and proof, go hand in hand through every chapter; and all this has been done in such concise language, and with such avoidance of technical terms as to be intelligible to readers of any grade. The author is a professor of mathematics at Cambridge, but his honours are not vaunted in fine unintelligibilities: he writes of common things in a common way, and not, like Hudibras, who told the clock by algebra, or, like the lady in Dr. Young's Satires, who drank tea by stratagem. Would that all professors had written in the same vein. Then, learning would not have been so mixed up with the mysticism of the cell and the cloister, nor the evils of ignorance have so long retarded the happiness of mankind: for, "learning," observes one of the greatest moralists of his day, "once made popular is no longer learning; it has the appearance of something which we have bestowed upon ourselves, as the dew appears to rise from the field which it refreshes."
The origin of Mr. Babbage's work will best explain its practical worth. He considers it as one of the consequences that have resulted from the Calculating Machine, the construction of which he has been long superintending. Having been induced during the last ten years to visit a considerable number of workshops and factories, both in England and on the Continent, for the purpose of endeavouring to make himself acquainted with the various resources of mechanical art, he was insensibly led to apply to them those principles of generalization to which his other pursuits had naturally given rise. It should be observed, that he has not attempted to offer a complete enumeration of all the mechanical principles which regulate the application of machinery to arts and manufactures, but he has endeavoured to present to the reader those which struck him as the most important, either for understanding the action of machines, or of enabling the memory to classify and arrange the facts connected with their employment. Or, a still more lucid explanation of the object of the volume is—"to point out the effects and the advantages which arise from the use of tools and machines;—to endeavour to classify their modes of action;—and to trace both the causes and the consequences of applying machinery to supersede the skill and power of the human arm."
To dwell upon the interest of these inquiries in a manufacturing country like our own, would be a waste of time; as it would be to question their full appreciation by the, par excellence, useful classes. Yet, a lamentable indifference to manufacturing processes pervades wealthier persons. Mr. Babbage observes, "those who possess rank in a manufacturing country can scarcely be excused if they are entirely ignorant of principles whose developement has produced its greatness. The possessors of wealth can scarcely be indifferent to processes which nearly or remotely have been the fertile source of their possessions. Those who enjoy leisure can scarcely find a more interesting and instructive pursuit than the examination of the workshops of their own country, which contain within them a rich mine of knowledge, too generally neglected by the wealthier classes." This complaint is we fear but too well grounded; and it is to such indifference, not to say ignorance, that we must attribute the perversion of wealth from the encouragement of art and science to objects less worthy of patronage. Unhappily for all states of mankind, enjoyment too often drives from the mind of the possessor, the bare remembrance of the means of acquisition: luxury forgets the innumerable ingenuities that minister to its cravings, and wealth, once obtained, unfits the mind for future self-exertion or sympathy for others. Many an upstart voluptuary surveys the elegancies of his well-furnished mansion in comparative ignorance of the means employed for their perfection; and, as regards his stock of knowledge conducive to happiness, he is in a more "parlous state" than the poor shepherd who had not been at court. How many of the prodigals that cross in the steam-boat from Dover to Calais are acquainted with the first principles of the mighty power by which they are impelled, or have any feeling beyond vulgar wonder at its advantages! Again, what account can such persons furnish of the curious processes employed in workshops, which they have witnessed—as the manufacture of a musket at Birmingham, a razor at Sheffield, a piece of cotton at Manchester, a pair of stockings at Nottingham, a tea-cup at Worcester, a piece of ribbon at Coventry, an anchor or a ship at Portsmouth, &c. Yet these labours involve triumphs of ingenuity which once witnessed ought never to pass from the memory.
We intend to devote a future page or two to exemplars from Mr. Babbage's volume; but, as our extracts can be but solitary specimens we recommend the reader who wishes fully to appreciate its worth to purchase the work.