ronze presently
replaces stone, not only in the articles it was first used for, but in
many others--in arms, tools, and utensils of various kinds: and so
affects the manufacture of them. Further, it affects the processes which
these utensils subserve, and the resulting products,--modifies
buildings, carvings, personal decorations. Yet again, it sets going
manufactures which were before impossible, from lack of a material fit
for the requisite implements. And all these changes react on the
people--increase their manipulative skill, their intelligence, their
comfort,--refine their habits and tastes. Thus the evolution of a
homogeneous society into a heterogeneous one, is clearly consequent on
the general principle, that many effects are produced by one cause.

Space permitting, we might show how the localization oL special
industries in special parts of a kingdom, as well as the minute
subdivision of labour in the making of each commodity, are similarly
determined. Or, turning to a somewhat different order of illustrations,
we might dwell on the multitudinous changes--material, intellectual,
moral,--caused by printing; or the further extensive series of changes
wrought by gunpowder. But leaving the intermediate phases of social
development, let us take a few illustrations from its most recent and
its passing phases. To trace the effects of steam-power, in its manifold
applications to mining, navigation, and manufactures of all kinds, would
carry us into unmanageable detail. Let us confine ourselves to the
latest embodiment of steam power--the locomotive engine. This, as the
proximate cause of our railway system, has changed the face of the
country, the course of trade, and the habits of the people. Consider,
first, the complicated sets of changes that precede the making of every
railway--the provisional arrangements, the meetings, the registration,
the trial section, the parliamentary survey, the lithographed plans, the
books of reference, the local deposits and notices, the application to
Parliament, the passing Standing Orders Committee, the first, second,
and third readings: each of which brief heads indicates a multiplicity
of transactions, and the extra development of sundry occupations--as
those of engineers, surveyors, lithographers, parliamentary agents,
share-brokers; and the creation of sundry others--as those of
traffic-takers, reference-takers. Consider, next, the yet more marked
changes implied in railway con