xecuted its proper movements. When corn was thrown down
before it, the duck stretched out its neck to pick it up, swallowed, and
digested it. {*1}

But if these machines were ingenious, what shall we think of the
calculating machine of Mr. Babbage? What shall we think of an engine of
wood and metal which can not only compute astronomical and navigation
tables to any given extent, but render the exactitude of its operations
mathematically certain through its power of correcting its possible
errors? What shall we think of a machine which can not only accomplish
all this, but actually print off its elaborate results, when obtained,
without the slightest intervention of the intellect of man? It will,
perhaps, be said, in reply, that a machine such as we have described
is altogether above comparison with the Chess-Player of Maelzel. By no
means--it is altogether beneath it--that is to say provided we assume
(what should never for a moment be assumed) that the Chess-Player is a
_pure machine, _and performs its operations without any immediate human
agency. Arithmetical or algebraical calculations are, from their very
nature, fixed and determinate. Certain _data _being given, certain
results necessarily and inevitably follow. These results have dependence
upon nothing, and are influenced by nothing but the _data _originally
given. And the question to be solved proceeds, or should proceed, to
its final determination, by a succession of unerring steps liable to
no change, and subject to no modification. This being the case, we can
without difficulty conceive the _possibility _of so arranging a piece
of mechanism, that upon starting In accordance with the _data _of the
question to be solved, it should continue its movements regularly,
progressively, and undeviatingly towards the required solution, since
these movements, however complex, are never imagined to be otherwise
than finite and determinate. But the case is widely different with the
Chess-Player. With him there is no determinate progression. No one move
in chess necessarily follows upon any one other. From no particular
disposition of the men at one period of a game can we predicate their
disposition at a different period. Let us place the _first move _in
a game of chess, in juxta-position with the _data _of an algebraical
question, and their great difference will be immediately perceived. From
the latter--from the _data--_the second step of the question, dependent
thereu