But the
introduction of machines, like every other step of human progress, met
with the most violent opposition from those it was to benefit. "Smash
'em!" cried the workingman. "Smash 'em!" cried the poet. "Smash 'em!"
cried the artist. "Smash 'em!" cried the theologian. "Smash 'em!" cried
the magistrate. This opposition yet lingers and every new invention,
especially in chemistry, is greeted with general distrust and often with
legislative prohibition.
Man is the tool-using animal, and the machine, that is, the power-driven
tool, is his peculiar achievement. It is purely a creation of the human
mind. The wheel, its essential feature, does not exist in nature. The
lever, with its to-and-fro motion, we find in the limbs of all animals,
but the continuous and revolving lever, the wheel, cannot be formed of
bone and flesh. Man as a motive power is a poor thing. He can only
convert three or four thousand calories of energy a day and he does that
very inefficiently. But he can make an engine that will handle a hundred
thousand times that, twice as efficiently and three times as long.
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