Rachel's Blog: With regard to mechanical knowledge

Just substitute a few words here and there and, you know, not much has changed in the world of change.

With regard to mechanical knowledge, it is probable that we are still in our infancy, and when it is considered that, fifty years ago, many inventions for abridging the operations of industry, which are now in common use, were utterly unknown, it is not absurd to conjecture that, fifty years hence, some new contrivance may be thought of in comparison with which the steam engine and spinning jennies, however wonderful they appear to us at present, will be considered as slight and insignificant discoveries.

- Fredrick Morton Eden, circa 1790, quoted in English Society in the Eighteenth Century, Roy Porter.

Also, sentences were longer in the olden days.

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