Babbage taught us years ago that one great use of machinery was not to augment the force of man, but to register and regulate the power of man; and this in a thousand ways civilised man can do, and is ready to do, better and more precisely than the barbarian.
Bagehot references Babbage to illustrate how machinery enhances human capability rather than just force.
Share
More from Walter Bagehot
The work would be done so well that we should not want any one to look over or revise it.
They are solely concerned with his attractiveness as a candidate; they need not regard his efficiency as a ruler.
Now it is not conceivable that a race of beings with valuable instincts supporting their existence and supplying their wants would need these simple tools.
Savages waste away before modern civilisation; they seem to have held their ground before the ancient.
Other voices in this conversation
