corresponding
continuous degeneration of certain other elements.

Sec. 2. The growth of machine-industry then may be measured by the
increased number and complexity of the processes related to one
another in the mechanical unit or machine, and by a corresponding
shrinkage of the dependence of the product upon the skill and volition
of the human being who tends or co-operates with the machine. Every
product made by tool or machine is _qua_ industrial product or
commodity the expression of the thought and will of man; but as
machine-production becomes more highly developed, more and more of the
thought and will of the inventor, less and less of that of the
immediate human agent or machine-tender is expressed in the product.
But it is evidently not enough to say that the labour-saving machine
has merely substituted the stored and concentrated effort of the
inventor for that labour of the handicraftsman which is saved. This
would be to ignore the saving of muscular power due to the
substitution of forces of nature--water, steam, electricity, etc., for
the painful effort of man. It is the thought of the inventor, plus the
action of various mechanical and other physical forces, which has
saved the labour of man in the production of a commodity. The further
question--how far this saving of labour in respect of a given
commodity is compensated by the increased number of commodities to
which human labour is applied--is a consideration which belongs to a
later chapter.

In tracing the effect of the application of modern machinery to
English industry there appear two prominent factors, which for certain
purposes require separate treatment--the growth of improved mechanical
apparatus, and the evolution of extra-human motor power.

We speak of the industry which has prevailed since the middle of the
eighteenth century as machine-production, not because there were no
machines before that time, but firstly, because a vast acceleration in
the invention of complex machinery applied to almost all industrial
arts dates from that period, and secondly, because the application
upon an extensive scale of non-human motor powers manifested itself
then for the first time.

One important external effect and indication of the momentous
character of these changes is to be found in the quickening of that
operation, the beginning of which was observable before the great
inventions, the substitution of the Factory System for the Domestic
System.