"The factory system in technology is simply the combined operation of many orders of work-people in tending with assiduous skill a series of productive machines, continuously impelled by a central power."[15]
A central power controlling an army of workers had been the dream of all mechanicians; and Ure formulated this also:—
"It is the idea of a vast automaton, composed of various mechanical and intellectual organs, acting in uninterrupted concert for the production of a common object,—all of them being subordinate to a self-regulated moving force."
This was the result brought about by the gradual extension of the factory system. The objections made from the beginning, and still made, with such answers as experience has suggested, find place later on.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] By Thorold Rogers.
[5] Weeden's Economic and Social History of New England, vol. i. p. 304.
[6] Caulkins, p. 273.
[7] Rider's Book Notes, vol. ii. p. 7.
[8] Boston News-Letter, Jan. 25, 1773.