Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 1 of 3: Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions.Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy
Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 1 of 3: Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions.
Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy; Political science; Science
Space permitting, we might show how the localization o£ 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 construction--the cuttings, embankings,
tunnellings, diversions of roads; the building of bridges and stations,
the laying down of ballast, sleepers, and rails; the making of engines,
tenders, carriages, and waggons: which processes, acting on numerous
trades, increase the importation of timber, the quarrying of stone, the
manufacture of iron, the mining of coal, the burning of bricks;
institute a variety of special manufactures weekly advertised in the
_Railway Times_; and, finally, open the way to sundry new occupations,
as those of drivers, stokers, cleaners, plate-layers, &c., &c. And then
consider the changes, still more numerous and involved, which railways
in action produce on the community at large. Business agencies are
established where previously they would not have paid; goods are
obtained from remote wholesale houses instead of near retail ones; and
commodities are used which distance once rendered inaccessible. Again,
the diminished cost of carriage tends to specialize more than ever the
industries of different districts--to confine each manufacture to the
parts in which, from local advantages, it can be best carried on.
Further, the fall in freights, facilitating distribution, equalizes
prices, and also, on the average, lowers prices: thus bringing divers
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