The telephone is not in the class with the actual doers of things, like the weaving machine and the gun, but rather in the class with the telegraph and the typewriter, in being an assistant to the doers of things: that is, it is an instrument rather than a machine. This does not mean that a machine is more important than an instrument, though possibly machines have done more work directly in furthering civilization than instruments have. A machine does something itself; an instrument is a means or agency or implement with which men do something. As a class, machines have probably been more directly useful than instruments; but this does not mean, of course, that any machine that one may name has been more useful than any instrument. A machine (generally speaking) does only one class of work; the sewing-machine, for instance, does no work save sewing; while such an instrument as the telephone is an aid to men in directing the work of thousands of machines. It may be pointed out here that, in the broad meaning of the word instrument, every machine that does actual work is an instrument in the hands of men for doing that work; but that every instrument is not necessarily a machine. A machine, by definition, is composed of various parts that work together to a common end, and it carries with it the ideas of movement and of power. An instrument, on the other hand, need not be composed of more than one part; it may of itself be incapable of moving or exerting power; and yet, in the hands of men and women, it may be the means of doing the most useful work. A familiar illustration among many is the needle. Now the telephone can hardly be called a machine: it can of itself do nothing. It is not like an engine that can do work hour after hour, without external interposition, supervision or assistance. Yet, for the reason that the only value of a machine lies in the fact that it is an instrument whereby men can get results, an instrument is not necessarily in a lower class than a machine. The essential value of the telephone seems to lie in the fact that the Machine has become so complicated, and composed of so many separate parts, that, without the telephone, those parts would not be adequately linked together. The telephone, like the telegraph, acts in the Machine of Civilization as do the nerves in the human organism. The human organism could not be an organism without the nervous system; and the present Machine could not exist in its present form without the telegraph and the telephone. These two instruments have so greatly improved the Machine as to raise it toward the dignity of an organism. They have not made it an organism, because they have not endowed it with life. They have, however, raised it to the dignity of an automatic machine, by supplying such a ready and sure means of conveying information and instructions, that a blow to the Machine anywhere is felt everywhere, and assistance to the part attacked can be summoned from everywhere.