INTRODUCTION.

The object of the present volume is to point out the effects
and the advantages which arise from the use of tools and
machines;--to endeavour to classify their modes of action;--and to
trace both the causes and the consequences of applying machinery
to supersede the skill and power of the human arm.

A view of the mechanical part of the subject will, in the
first instance, occupy our attention, and to this the first
section of the work will be devoted. The first chapter of the
section will contain some remarks on the general sources from
whence the advantages of machinery are derived, and the
succeeding nine chapters will contain a detailed examination of
principles of a less general character. The eleventh chapter
contains numerous subdivisions, and is important from the
extensive classification it affords of the arts in which copying
is so largely employed. The twelfth chapter, which completes the
first section, contains a few suggestions for the assistance of
those who propose visiting manufactories.

The second section, after an introductory chapter on the
difference between making and manufacturing, will contain, in the
succeeding chapters, a discussion of many of the questions which
relate to the political economy of the subject. It was found that
the domestic arrangement, or interior economy of factories, was
so interwoven with the more general questions, that it was deemed
unadvisable to separate the two subjects. The concluding chapter
of this section, and of the work itself, relates to the future
prospects of manufactures, as arising from the application of
science.