Economy Of Machinery And Manufactures
By Charles Babbage

generalization to which my other pursuits had naturally given

rise.

The increased number of curious processes and interesting

facts which thus came under my attention, as well as of the

reflections which they suggested, induced me to believe that the

publication of some of them might be of use to persons who

propose to bestow their attention on those enquiries which I have

only incidentally considered. With this view it was my intention

to have delivered the present work in the form of a course of

lectures at Cambridge; an intention which I was subsequently

induced to alter. The substance of a considerable portion of it

has, however, appeared among the preliminary chapters of the

mechanical part of the Encyclopedia Metropolitana."

                     -CHARLES BABAGE