y. The
utilization of coal for the smelting of iron ore; the invention of
machinery that could spin and weave; the application of the undreamed
energy of steam as a motive force, the building of canals and the making
of stone roads--these proved but the beginnings. Each stage of invention
called for a further advance. The quickening of one part of the process
necessitated the "speeding up" of all the others. It placed a premium--a
reward already in sight--upon the next advance. Mechanical spinning
called forth the power loom. The increase in production called for new
means of transport. The improvement of transport still further swelled
the volume of production. The steamboat of 1809 and the steam locomotive
of 1830 were the direct result of what had gone before. Most important
of all, the movement had become a conscious one. Invention was no longer
the fortuitous result of a happy chance. Mechanical progress, the
continual increase of power and the continual surplus of product became
an essential part of the environment, and an unconscious element in the
thought and outlook of the civilized world.

No wonder that the first aspect of the age of machinery was one of
triumph. Man had vanquished nature. The elemental forces of wind and
fire, of rushing water and driving storm before which the savage had
cowered low for shelter, these had become his servants. The forest that
had blocked his path became his field. The desert blossomed as his
garden.

The aspect of industrial life altered. The domestic industry of the
cottage and the individual labor of the artisan gave place to the
factory with its regiment of workers and its steam-driven machinery.
The economic isolation of the single worker, of the village, even of the
district and the nation, was lost in the general cohesion in which the
whole industrial world merged into one.

The life of the individual changed accordingly. In the old world his
little sphere was allotted to him and there he stayed. His village was
his horizon. The son of the weaver wove and the smith reared his
children to his trade. Each did his duty, or was adjured to do it, in
the "state of life to which it had pleased God to call him." Migration
to distant occupations or to foreign lands was but for the adventurous
few. The ne'er-do-well blew, like seed before the wind, to distant
places, but mankind at large stayed at home. Here and there exceptional
industry or extraordinary capacity raised the