In the domestic arrangements of a well-regulated household, whether of a poor man or of a rich man, one of the chief cares is to save labour. Every contrivance to save labour that ingenuity can suggest is eagerly adopted when a country becomes highly civilized. In former times, in our own country, when such contrivances were little known, and materials as well as time were constantly wasted in every direction, a great Baron was surrounded with a hundred menial servants; but he had certainly less real and useful labour performed for him than a tradesman of the present day obtains from three servants. Are there fewer servants now employed than in those times of barbarous state? Certainly not. The middle classes amongst us can get a great deal done for them in the way of domestic service, at a small expense, because servants are assisted by manifold contrivances which do much of the work for them. The contrivances render the article of service cheaper, and therefore there are more servants. The work being done by fewer servants, in consequence of the contrivances, the servants themselves are better paid than if there was no cost saved by the contrivance.
The common jack by which meat is roasted is described by Mr. Babbage as "a contrivance to enable the cook in a few minutes to exert a force (in winding up the jack) which the machine retails out during the succeeding hour in turning the loaded spit, thus enabling her to bestow her undivided attention on her other duties." We have seen, years ago, in farm-houses, a man employed to turn a spit with a handle; dogs have been used to run in a wheel for the same purpose, and hence a particular breed so used are called "turnspits." When some ingenious servant-girl discovered that, if she put a skewer through the meat and hung it before the fire by a skein of worsted, it would turn with very little attention, she made an approach to the principle of the bottle-jack. All these contrivances diminish labour, and ensure regularity of movement;—and therefore they are valuable contrivances.
A bell which is pulled in one room and rings in another, and which therefore establishes a ready communication between the most distant parts of a house, is a contrivance to save labour. In a large family the total want of bells would add a fourth at least to the labour of servants. Where three servants are kept now, four servants would be required to be kept then. Would the destruction of all the bells therefore add one-fourth to the demand for servants? Certainly not. The funds employed in paying for service would not be increased a single farthing; and, therefore, by the destruction of bells, all the families of the kingdom would have some work left undone, to make up for the additional labour required through the want of this useful contrivance: or all the servants in the kingdom would be more hardly worked,—would have to work sixteen hours a day instead of twelve.
In some parts of India the natives have a very rude contrivance to mark the progress of time. A thin metal cup, with a small hole in its bottom, is put to float in a vessel of water; and as the water rises through the hole the cup sinks in a given time—in 24 minutes. A servant is set to watch the sinking of the cup, and when this happens he strikes upon a bell. Half a century ago, almost every cottage in England had its hour-glass—an imperfect instrument for registering the progress of time, because it only indicated its course between hour and hour; and an instrument which required a very watchful attention, and some labour, to be of any use at all. The universal use of watches or clocks, in India, would wholly displace the labour of the servants who note the progress of time by the filling of the cup; and the same cause has displaced, amongst us, the equally unprofitable labour employed in turning the hour-glass, and watching its movement. Almost every house in England has now a clock or watch of some sort; and every house in India would have the same, if the natives were more enlightened, and were not engaged in so many modes of unprofitable labour to keep them poor. His profitable labour has given the English mechanic the means of getting a watch. Machinery, used in every possible way, has made this watch cheap. The labour formerly employed in turning the hour-glass, or in running to look at the church clock, is transferred to the making of watches. The user of the watch obtains an accurate register of time, which teaches him to know the value of that most precious possession, and to economize it; and the producers of the watch have abundant employment in the universal demand for this valuable machine.
A watch or clock is an instrument for assisting an operation of the mind. Without some instrument for registering time, the mind could very imperfectly attain the end which the watch attains, not requiring any mental labour. The observation of the progress of time, by the situation of the sun in the day, or of particular stars at night, is a labour requiring great attention, and various sorts of accurate knowledge. It is therefore never attempted, except when men have no machines for registering time. In the same manner the labours of the mind have been saved, in a thousand ways, by other contrivances of science.
The foot-rule of the carpenter not only gives him the standard of a foot measure, which he could not exactly ascertain by any experience, or any mental process, but it is also a scale of the proportions of an inch, or several inches, to a foot, and of the parts of an inch to an inch. What a quantity of calculations, and of dividing by compasses, does this little instrument save the carpenter, besides ensuring a much greater degree of accuracy in all his operations! The common rules of arithmetic, which almost every boy in England now learns, are parts of a great invention for saving mental labour. The higher branches of mathematics, of which science arithmetic is a portion, are also inventions for saving labour, and for doing what could never be done without these inventions. There are instruments, and very curious ones, for lessening the labour of all arithmetical calculations; and tables, that is, the results of certain calculations, which are of practical use, are constructed for the same purpose. When we buy a joint of meat, we often see the butcher turn to a little book, before he tells us how much a certain number of pounds and ounces amounts to, at a certain price per pound. This book is his 'Ready Reckoner,' and a very useful book it is to him; for it enables him to despatch his customers in half the time that he would otherwise require, and thus to save himself a great deal of labour, and a great deal of inaccuracy. The inventions for saving mental labour, in calculations of arithmetic, have been carried so far, that Mr. Babbage had almost perfected a calculating machine, which not only did its work of calculation without the possibility of error, but absolutely was to arrange printing types of figures, in a frame, so that no error could be produced in copying the calculations before they are printed. We mention this curious machine, to show how far science may go in diminishing mental labour, and ensuring accuracy. The want of government funds prevented its completion.
To all who read this book it is no difficulty to count a hundred; and most know the relation which a hundred bears to a thousand, and a thousand bears to a million. Most are able, also, to read off those numbers, or parts of those numbers, when they see them marked down in figures. There are many uncivilized people in the world who cannot count twenty. They have no idea whatever of numbers, beyond perhaps as far as the number of their fingers, or their fingers and their toes. How have we obtained this great superiority over these poor savages? Because science has been at work, for many centuries, to diminish the amount of our mental labour, by teaching us the easiest modes of calculation. And how did we learn these modes? We learnt them from our schoolmasters.
If any follow up the false reasoning which has led some to think that whatever diminishes labour diminishes the number of labourers, they might conclude, that, as there is less mental work to be done, because science has diminished the labour of that work, there would, therefore, be fewer mental workmen. Thank God, the greater facilities that have been given to the cultivation of the mind, the greater is the number of those who exert themselves in that cultivation. The effects of saving unprofitable labour are the same in all cases. The use of machinery in aid of bodily labour has set that bodily labour to a thousand new employments; and has raised the character of the employments, by transferring the lowest of the drudgery to wheels and pistons. The use of science in the assistance of mental labour has conducted that labour to infinitely more numerous fields of exertion; and has elevated all intellectual pursuits, by making their commoner processes the play of childhood, instead of the toil of manhood.
We cannot doubt that any invention which gives assistance to the thinking powers of mankind, and, therefore, by dispensing with much mental drudgery, leads the mind forward to nobler exertions, is a benefit to all. It is not more than four hundred years ago, that the use of Arabic numerals, or figures, began to be generally known in this country. The first date in those numerals said to exist in England, is upon a brass plate in Ware church, 1454. The same date in Roman numerals, which were in use before the Arabic ones, would be expressed by eight letters, mccccliv. The introduction of figures, therefore, was an immense saving of time in the commonest operations of arithmetic. How puzzled we should be, and what a quantity of labour we should lose, if we were compelled to reckon earnings and marketings by the long mode of notation, instead of the short one! This book is easily read, because it is written in words composed of twenty-four letters. In China, where there are no letters in use, every word in the language is expressed by a different character. Few people in China write or read; and those who do, acquire very little knowledge, except the mere knowledge of writing and reading. All the time of their learned men is occupied in acquiring the means of knowledge, and not knowledge itself; and the bulk of the people get very little knowledge at all. It would be just the same thing if there were no machines or engines for diminishing manual labour. Those who had any property would occupy all their time, and the time of their immediate dependents, in raising food and making clothes for themselves, and the rest of the people would go without any food or clothes at all; or rather, which comes to the same thing, there would be no "rest of the people;" the lord and his vassals would have all the produce;—there would be half a million of people in the United Kingdom instead of twenty-seven millions.
When a boy has got hold of what we call the rudiments of learning, he has possessed himself of the most useful tools and machines which exist in the world. He has obtained the means of doing that with extreme ease, which, without these tools, is done only with extreme labour. He has earned the time which, if rightly employed, will elevate his mind, and therefore improve his condition. Just so is it with all tools and machines for diminishing bodily exertion. They give us the means of doing that with comparative ease, which, without them, can only be done with extreme drudgery. They set at liberty a great quantity of mere animal power, which, having then leisure to unite with mental power, produces ingenious and skilful workmen in every trade. But they do more than this. They diminish human suffering—they improve the health—they increase the term of life—they render all occupations less painful and laborious;—and, by doing all this, they elevate man in the scale of existence.