The Danish Peace Academy

SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

John Avery
H.C. Ørsted Institute, University of Copenhagen

Chapter 8 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Technical change

We have just seen how the development of printing in Europe produced a brilliant, chainlike series of scientific discoveries. During the 17th century, the rate of scientific progress gathered momentum, and in the 18th and 19th centuries, the practical applications of scientific knowledge revolutionized the methods of production in agriculture and industry.

The changes produced by the industrial revolution at first resulted in social chaos - enormous wealth in some classes of society, and great suffering in other classes; but later, after the appropriate social and political adjustments had been made, the improved methods of production benefited all parts of society in a more even way.

There is, in fact, a general pattern which we can notice in the social impact of technology: Technical changes usually occur rapidly, while social and political adjustments take more time. The result is an initial period of social disruption following a technical change, which continues until the structure of society has had time to adjust. Thus, for example, the introduction of a money-based economy into a society which has previously been based on a pattern of traditional social duties always creates an initial period of painful disruption.

In the case of the Industrial Revolution, feudal society, with its patterns of village life and its traditional social obligations, was suddenly replaced by an industrial society whose rules were purely economic, and in which labor was regarded as a commodity. At first, the change produced severe social disruption and suffering; but now, after two centuries of social and political adjustment, the industrialized countries are generally considered to have benefited from the change.

Cullen, Black and Watt

The two driving forces behind the Industrial Revolution were world trade and scientific discovery. During the 18th century, both these forces were especially strongly felt in Scotland and in the north-western part of England. The distilling industry in Scotland grew enormously because of world trade; and the resulting interest in what happens when liquids are vaporized and condensed produced one of the major scientific and technical developments of the Industrial Revolution.

The first step in this development was taken by William Cullen, a professor of medicine at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. In a paper entitled Of the Cold Produced by Evaporation (1749), Cullen wrote that he had noticed that “...water and some other liquids, in evaporating, produce some degree of cold”.

Cullen therefore began to make experiments in which he dipped a thermometer in and out of a liquid and observed the drop in temperature. He noticed that the effect was increased by “...moving the thermometer very nimbly to and fro in the air; or if, while the ball was wet with spirit of wine, it was blown upon with a pair of bellows”. In this way, Cullen achieved a temperature 44 degrees below the freezing point of water. He next tried producing vacuums above various liquids with the help of an air pump:

“We set the vessel containing the ether”, Cullen wrote, “In another a little larger, containing water. Upon exhausting the receiver and the vessel’s remaining a few minutes in vacuo, we found the most part of the water frozen, and the vessel containing the ether surrounded with a thick crust of ice.”

One of Cullen’s favorite students at Edinburgh was Joseph Black (1728-1799). He became Cullen’s scientific assistant, and later, in 1756, he was elected to the Chair of Medicine at Glasgow University. Continuing Cullen’s work on the cold produced by evaporating liquids, Black discovered and studied quantitatively the phenomenon of latent heats, e.g., the very large quantities of heat which are necessary to convert ice into water, or to convert water into steam.

Black was led to his discovery of latent heats not only by Cullen’s work, but also by his own observations on Scottish weather. Writing of the discovery, one of Black’s friends at Glasgow recorded that “...since a fine winter day of sunshine did not at once clear the hills of snow, nor a frosty night suddenly cover the ponds with ice, Dr. Black was already convinced that much heat was absorbed and fixed in the water which slowly trickled from the wreaths of snow; and on the other hand, that much heat emerged from it while it was slowly changing into ice. For, during a thaw, a thermometer will always sink when removed from the air into melting snow; and during a severe frost it will rise when plunged into freezing water. Therefore in the first case, the snow is receiving heat, and in the last, the water is allowing it to emerge again.”

At Glasgow University, where Joseph Black was Professor of Medicine, there was a shop where scientific instruments were made and sold. The owner of the shop was a young man named James Watt (1736-1819), who came from a family of ship builders and teachers of mathematics and navigation. Besides being an extremely competent instrument maker, Watt was a self-taught scientist of great ability, and his shop became a meeting place for scientifically inclined students. Dr. Black was also a frequent visitor toWatt’s shop, and a strong friendship formed between the professor and the highly intelligent young instrument maker.

In 1763, Glasgow University asked James Watt to repair a model of a Newcomen steam engine. This type of steam engine had been used for several years to pump water out of mines. It had a single cylinder which filled with steam so that the piston was driven to one end. Then water was sprayed into the cylinder, condensing the steam; and the vacuum drew the piston back to the other end of the cylinder, thus completing the cycle.

James Watt tried to repair the university’s small-scale model of the Newcomen engine, but he failed to make it work well. He could see that it was extraordinarily inefficient in its use of fuel, and he began making experiments to find out why it was so wasteful. Because of JamesWatt’s friendship with Joseph Black, he quickly found the answer in the phenomena of latent heats and specific heats: The engine was inefficient because of the large amounts of energy needed to convert water into steam and to heat the iron cylinder.

In 1765, Watt designed an improved engine with a separate condenser. The working cylinder could then be kept continuously hot, and the condensing steam could be returned through the boiler, so that its latent heat could be used to preheat the incoming water. To have an idea for a new, energy-saving engine was one thing, however, and to make the machine practical was another. James Watt had experience as instrument maker, but no experience in large-scale engineering. In 1767, Watt was engaged to make a survey for a canal which was to join the Forth and the Clyde through Loch Lomond. Because of this work, he had to make a trip to London to explain the canal project to a parliamentary committee; and on the return trip he met Dr. Erasmus Darwin in Birmingham. Darwin, who was interested in steam engines, quickly recognized Watt’s talent and the merit of his idea.

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was the most famous physician of the period, but his interests were by no means confined to medicine. He anticipated his grandson, Charles Darwin, by developing the first reasonably well thought-out theory of evolution; and, at the time when he met James Watt he was enthusiastically trying to design a steam locomotive. His collaborators in this project were Benjamin Franklin and the pioneering Birmingham industrialist, Matthew Boulton. In August, 1767, Erasmus Darwin wrote to Watt: “The plan of your steam improvements I have religiously kept secret, but begin to see myself some difficulties in your execution, which did not strike me when you were here. I have got another and another hobby horse since I saw you. I wish that the Lord would send you to pass a week with me, and Mrs. Watt with you; - a week, a month, a year!”

Dr. Darwin introduced James Watt to Matthew Boulton, and a famous partnership was formed. The partnership of Boulton and Watt was destined to make the steam engine practical, and thus to create a new age - an age in which humans would would rely for power neither on their own muscles nor on the muscles of slaves, but would instead control almost unlimited power through their engines.

James Watt was lucky to meet Erasmus Darwin and to be introduced to Matthew Boulton, since Boulton was the most talented and progressive manufacturer in England - the best possible man to understand the significance of Watt’s great invention and to help in its development.

Boulton

Matthew Boulton was the son of a Birmingham manufacturer, and at the age of seventeen, he had invented a type of metal buckle inlaid with glass, which proved to be extremely popular and profitable. By the time that he was twenty-one, his father had made him manager of the business. At twenty-eight, Matthew Boulton married an heiress, receiving a very large dowry. When his wife died four years later, Boulton married her younger sister, and he was given a second large fortune.

Instead of retiring from manufacturing and becoming a country gentleman, as most of his contemporaries would have done, Boulton used his wealth to try out new ideas. He tried especially to improve the quality of the goods manufactures in Birmingham. Since he was already an extremely rich man, he was more interested in applying art and science to manufacturing than he was in simply making money. Boulton’s idea was to bring together under one roof the various parts of the manufacturing process which had been scattered among many small workshops by the introduction of division of labor. He believed that improved working conditions would result in an improved quality of products.

With these ideas in mind, Matthew Boulton built a large mansionlike house on his property at Soho, outside Birmingham, and installed in it all the machinery necessary for the complete production of a variety of small steel products. Because of his personal charm, and because of the comfortable working conditions at the Soho Manufactory, Boulton was able to attract the best and most skillful craftsmen in the region; and by 1765, the number of the staff at Soho had reached 600. Boulton continued to manufacture utilitarian goods, on which he made a profit, but he also introduced a line of goods of high artistic merit on which he gained prestige but lost money. He made fine gilt brass candelabra for both George III and Catherine the Great; and he was friendly with George III, who consulted him on technical questions. At this point, Erasmus Darwin introduced James Watt to Matthew Boulton, and they formed a partnership for the development of the steam engine. The high quality of craftsmanship and engineering skill which Matthew Boulton was able to put at Watt’s disposal allowed the young inventor to turn his great idea into a reality. However, progress was slow, and the original patent was running out.

Boulton skillfully lobbied in Parliament for an extension of the patent and, as James Watt put it, “Mr. Boulton’s amiable and friendly character, together with his fame as an ingenious and active manufacturer procured me many and very active friends in both houses of Parliament”.

In 1775, the firm of Boulton and Watt was granted an extension of the master steam engine patent until 1800. From a legal and financial standpoint, the way was now clear for the development of the engine; and a major technical difficulty was overcome when the Birmingham ironmaster and cannon-maker, John Wilkinson, invented a method for boring large cylinders accurately by fixing the cutting tool to a very heavy and stable boring shaft.

By 1780, Boulton and Watt had erected 40 engines, about half of which pumped water from the deep Cornish tin mines. Even their early models were at least four times as efficient as the Newcomen engine, and Watt continually improved the design. At Boulton’s urging, James Watt designed rotary engines, which could be used for driving mills; and he also invented a governor to regulate the speed of his engines, thus becoming a pioneer of automation. By the time its patent of the separate condenser had run out in 1800, the firm of Boulton and Watt had made 500 engines. After 1800, the rate of production of steam engines became exponential, and when James Watt died in 1819, his inventions had given employment, directly or indirectly, to an estimated two million people.

The Soho manufactory became an almost obligatory stop on any distinguished person’s tour of England. Samuel Johnson, for example, wrote that he was received at Soho with great civility; and Boswell, who visited Soho on another occasion, was impressed by “the vastness and contrivance” of the machinery. He wrote that he would never forget Matthew Boulton’s words to him as they walked together through the manufactory: “I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have - Power!”

The Lunar Society

Matthew Boulton loved to entertain; and he began to invite his friends in science and industry to regular dinners at his home. At these dinners, it was understood by all the guests that science and philosophy were to be the topics of the conversation. This group of friends began to call themselves the “Lunar Society”, because of their habit of meeting on nights when the moon was full so that they could find their way home easily afterwards.

During the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, the Lunar Society of Birmingham played a role in the development of scientific ideas which was almost as important as the role played by the Royal Society of London at the time of Isaac Newton. Among the members of this group of friends, besides Erasmus Darwin and James Watt, were the inventive and artistic pottery manufacturer, Josiah Wedgwood (the other grandfather of Charles Darwin), and the author, chemist and Unitarian minister, Joseph Priestley (1733-1804).

Joseph Priestley’s interests were typical of the period: The center of scientific attention had shifted from astronomy to the newly-discovered phenomena of electricity, heat and chemistry, and to the relationship between them. Priestly, who was a prolific and popular author of books on many topics, decided to write a History of Electricity. He not only collected all the results of previous workers in an organized form, but also, while repeating their experiments, he made a number of original discoveries. For example, Joseph Priestley was the first to discover the inverse square law of attraction and repulsion between electrical charges, a law which was later verified by the precise experiments of Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) and Charles Coulomb (1736-1806).

The chemistry of gases was also very much in vogue during this period. Joseph Black’s medical thesis at Edinburgh University had opened the field with an elegant quantitative treatment of chemical reactions involving carbon dioxide. Black had shown that when chalk (calcium carbonate) is heated, it is changed into a caustic residue (calcium oxide) and a gas (carbon dioxide).

Black had carefully measured the weight lost by the solid residue when the gas was driven off, and he had shown that precisely the same weight was regained by the caustic residue when it was exposed to the atmosphere and reconverted to chalk. His work suggested not only that weight is conserved in chemical reactions, but also that carbon dioxide is present in the atmosphere. Black’s work had initiated the use of precise weighing in chemistry, a technique which later was brought to perfection by the great French chemist, Anton Lavoisier (1743-1794). Joseph Priestley, (who had been supplied with a large burning-glass by his brother-in-law, the wealthy ironmaster, John Wilkinson), carried out an experiment similar to Black’s. He used the glass to focus the rays of the sun on a sample of what we now call red oxide of mercury. He collected the gas which was driven off, and tested its properties, recording that “...what surprized me more than I can well express was that a candle burned in this air with a remarkably vigorous flame”. He also found that a mouse could live much longer in the new gas than in ordinary air.

On a trip to France, Priestley communicated these results to Anton Lavoisier, who named the gas “oxygen” and established fully its connection with combustion and respiration. At almost the same time, the Swedish chemist, Karl Wilhelm Scheele (1742-1786), discovered oxygen independently.

Joseph Priestley isolated and studied nine other new gases; and he invented the technique of collecting gases over mercury. This was much better than collecting them over water, since the gases did not dissolve in mercury. He extended Joseph Black’s studies of carbon dioxide, and he invented a method for dissolving carbon dioxide in beverages under pressure, thus becoming the father of the modern soft drink industry!

The tremendous vogue for gas chemistry in the late 18th century can also be seen in the work of the eccentric multimillionaire scientist, Henry Cavendish, who discovered hydrogen by dissolving metals in acids, and then showed that when hydrogen is burned in oxygen, the resulting compound is pure water. Cavendish also combined the nitrogen in the atmosphere with oxygen by means of electrical sparks. The remaining bubble of atmospheric gas, which stubbornly refused to combine with oxygen, was later shown to be a new element - argon.

The great interest in gas chemistry shown by intelligent people of the period can be seen in Josiah Wedgwood’s suggestions to the painter, George Stubbs, who was commissioned to make a portrait of Wedgwood’s children:

“The two family pieces I have hinted at, I mean to contain the children only, and grouped perhaps in some such manner as this - Sukey playing upon her harpsichord with Kitty singing to her, as she often does, and Sally and Mary Ann upon the carpet in some employment suitable to their ages. This to be one picture. The pendant to be Jack standing at a table making fixable air with the glass apparatus etc., and his two brothers accompanying him, Tom jumping up and clapping his hands in joy, and surprized at seeing the stream of bubbles rise up just as Jack has put a little chalk to the acid. Jos with the chemical dictionary before him in a thoughtful mood; which actions will be exactly descriptive of their respective characters.” The force of feudal traditions was still so strong, however, that in spite of Josiah Wedgwood’s suggestions, George Stubbs painted the children on horseback, looking precisely like the children of a traditional landlord. The “fixable air” which Wedgwood mentions was the contemporary word for carbon dioxide. Josiah Wedgwood’s daughter, Sukey (Susannah), was destined to become the mother of the greatest biologist of all time, Charles Darwin.

Adam Smith

One of Joseph Black’s best friends at Glasgow University was the Professor of Moral Philosophy, Adam Smith. In 1759, Smith published a book entitled The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which was subtitled: An Essay towards an Analysis of the Principles by which Men naturally judge concerning the Conduct and Character, first of their Neighbors, and afterwards of themselves.

In this book, Adam Smith pointed out that people can easily judge the conduct of their neighbors. They certainly know when their neigh- bors are treating them well, or badly. Having learned to judge their neighbors, they can, by analogy, judge their own conduct. They can tell when they are mistreating their neighbor or being kind by asking themselves: “Would I want him to do this to me?” As Adam Smith put it:

“Our continual observations upon the conduct of others insensibly lead us to form to ourselves certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper to be done or avoided... It is thus the general rules of morality are formed.”

When we are kind to our neighbors, they maintain friendly relations with us; and to secure the benefits of their friendship, we are anxious to behave well towards other people. Thus, according to Adam Smith, enlightened self-interest leads men and women to moral behaviour. In 1776, Adam Smith published another equally optimistic book, with a similar theme: The Wealth of Nations. In this book, he examined the reasons why some nations are more prosperous than others. Adam Smith concluded that the two main factors in prosperity are division of labor and economic freedom.

As an example of the benefits of division of labor, he cited the example of a pin factory, where ten men, each a specialist in a particular manufacturing operation, could produce 48,000 pins per day. One man drew the wire, another straightened it, a third pointed the pins, a fourth put on the heads, and so on. If each man had worked separately, doing all the operations himself, the total output would be far less. The more complicated the manufacturing process (Smith maintained), the more it could be helped by division of labor. In the most complex civilizations, division of labor has the greatest utility.

Adam Smith believed that the second factor in economic prosperity is economic freedom, and in particular, freedom from mercantilist government regulations. He believed that natural economic forces tend to produce an optimum situation, in which each locality specializes in the economic operation for which it is best suited. Smith believed that when each individual aims at his own personal prosperity, the result is the prosperity of the community. A baker does not consciously set out to serve society by baking bread - he only intends to make money for himself; but natural economic forces lead him to perform a public service, since if he were not doing something useful, people would not pay him for it. Adam Smith expressed this idea in the following way:

“As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can, both to employ his capital in support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of greatest value, each individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the Society as great as he can.”

“He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for Society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of society more effectively than when he really intends to promote it.”

In Adam Smith’s optimistic view, an “invisible hand” guides individuals to promote the public good, while they consciously seek only their own gain. This vision was enthusiastically adopted adopted by the vigorously growing industrial nations of the west. It is the basis of much of modern history; but there proved to be shortcomings in Smith’s theory.

A collection of individuals, almost entirely free from governmental regulation, each guided only by his or her desire for personal gain - this proved to be a formula for maximum economic growth; but certain modifications were needed before it could lead to widely shared happiness and social justice.

The dark, Satanic mills

Both Matthew Boulton and Josiah Wedgwood were model employers as well as pioneers of the factory system. Matthew Boulton had a pension scheme for his men, and he made every effort to insure that they worked under comfortable conditions. However, when he died in 1809, the firm of Boulton and Watt was taken over by his son, Matthew Robbinson Boulton, in partnership with James Watt Jr.. The two sons did not have their fathers’ sense of social responsibility; and although they ran the firm very efficiently, they seemed to be more interested in profit-making than in the welfare of their workers.

A still worse employer was Richard Arkwright (1732-1792), who held patents on a series of machines for carding, drawing and spinning silk, cotton, flax and wool. He was a rough, uneducated man, who rose from humble origins to become a multimillionaire by driving himself almost as hard as he drove his workers. Arkwright perfected machines (invented by others) which could make extremely cheap and strong cotton thread; and as a result, a huge cotton manufacturing industry grew up within the space of a few years. The growth of the cotton industry was especially rapid after Arkwright’s patent expired in 1785. Crowds of workers, thrown off the land by the Enclosure Acts, flocked to the towns, seeking work in the new factories. Wages fell to a near-starvation level, hours of work increased, and working conditions deteriorated. Dr. Peter Gaskell, writing in 1833, described the condition of the English mill workers as follows:

“The vast deterioration in personal form which has been brought about in the manufacturing population during the last thirty years... is singularly impressive, and fills the mind with contemplations of a very painful character... Their complexion is sallow and pallid, with a peculiar flatness of feature caused by the want of a proper quantity of adipose substance to cushion out the cheeks. Their stature is low - the average height of men being five feet, six inches... Great numbers of the girls and women walk lamely or awkwardly... Many of the men have but little beard, and that in patches of a few hairs... (They have) a spiritless and dejected air, a sprawling and wide action of the legs...” “Rising at or before daybreak, between four and five o’clock the year round, they swallow a hasty meal or hurry to the mill without taking any food whatever... At twelve o’clock the engine stops, and an hour is given for dinner... Again they are closely immured from one o’clock till eight or nine, with the exception of twenty minutes, this being allowed for tea. During the whole of this long period, they are actively and unremittingly engaged in a crowded room at an elevated temperature.”

Dr. Gaskell described the housing of the workers as follows: “One of the circumstances in which they are especially defective is that of drainage and water-closets. Whole ranges of these houses are either totally undrained, or very partially... The whole of the washings and filth from these consequently are thrown into the front or back street, which, often being unpaved and cut into deep ruts, allows them to collect into stinking and stagnant pools; while fifty, or even more than that number, having only a single convenience common to them all, it is in a very short time choked with excrementous matter. No alternative is left to the inhabitants but adding this to the already defiled street.”

“It frequently happens that one tenement is held by several families... The demoralizing effects of this utter absence of domestic privacy must be seen before they can be thoroughly appreciated. By laying bare all the wants and actions of the sexes, it strips them of outward regard for decency - modesty is annihilated - the father and the mother, the brother and the sister, the male and female lodger, do not scruple to commit acts in front of each other which even the savage keeps hid from his fellows.”

“Most of these houses have cellers beneath them, occupied - if it is possible to find a lower class - by a still lower class than those living above them.”

The abuse of child labor was one of the worst features of early industrialism in England. Sometimes small children, starting at the age of six or seven, were forced to work, because wages were so low that the family would otherwise starve; and sometimes the children were orphans, taken from parish workhouses. The following extract from John Fielden’s book, The Curse of the Factory System (1836), describes the condition of young children working in the cotton industry: “It is well known that Arkwright’s (so called at least) inventions took manufactures out of the cottages and farmhouses of England... and assembled them in the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and more particularly, in Lancashire, where the newly-invented machinery was used in large factories built on the side of streams capable of turning the water wheel. Thousands of hands were suddenly required in these places, remote from towns.”

“The small and nimble fingers of children being by far the most in request, the custom instantly sprang up of procuring ‘apprentices’ from the different parish workhouses of London, Birmingham and elsewhere... Overseers were appointed to see to the works, whose interest it was to work the children to the utmost, because their pay was in proportion to the quantity of work which they could exact.” “Cruelty was, of course, the consequence; and there is abundant evidence on record to show that in many of the manufacturing districts, the most heart-rending cruelties were practiced on the unoffending and friendless creatures... that they were flogged, fettered and tortured in the most exquisite refinement of cruelty, that they were, in many cases, starved to the bone while flogged to their work, and that even in some instances they were driven to commit suicide... The profits of manufacture were enormous; but this only whetted the appetite it should have satisfied.”

One of the arguments which was used to justify the abuse of labor was that the alternative was starvation. The population of Europe had begun to grow rapidly for a variety of reasons: - because of the application of scientific knowledge to the prevention of disease; because the potato had been introduced into the diet of the poor; and because bubonic plague had become less frequent after the black rat had been replaced by the brown rat, accidentally imported from Asia. It was argued that the excess population could not be supported unless workers were employed in the mills and factories to produce manufactured goods, which could be exchanged for imported food. In order for the manufactured goods to be competitive, the labor which produced them had to be cheap: hence the abuses. (At least, this is what was argued).

Overpopulation

When the facts about the abuse of industrial workers in England became known, there were various attempts to explain what had gone wrong with the optimistic expectations of the Enlightenment. Among the writers who discussed this problem was the economist David Ricardo (1772-1823). In his book, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), Ricardo proposed his “iron law of wages”. According to Ricardo, labor is a commodity, and wages are determined by the law of supply and demand: When wages fall below the starvation level, the workers’ children die. Labor then becomes a scarce commodity, and the wages rise. On the other hand, when wages rise above the starvation level, the working population multiplies rapidly, labor becomes a plentiful commodity, and wages fall again. Thus, according to Ricardo, there is an “iron law” which holds wages at the minimum level at which life can be supported.

Ricardo’s reasoning assumes industrialists to be completely without social conscience or governmental regulation; it fails to anticipate the development of trade unionism; and it assumes that the working population will multiply without restraint as soon as their wages rise above the starvation level. This was an accurate description of what was happening in England during Ricardo’s lifetime, but it obviously does not hold for all times and all places.

A more general and complete description of the situation was given by Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834). Malthus came from an intellectual family: His father, Daniel Malthus, was a friend of Rousseau, Hume and Godwin. The famous book on population by the younger Malthus grew out of his conversations with his father.

Daniel Malthus was an enthusiastic believer in the optimistic philosophy of the Enlightenment. Like Goodwin, Condorcet and Voltaire, he believed that the application of scientific progress to agriculture and industry would inevitably lead humanity forward to a golden age. His son, Robert, was more pessimistic. He pointed out that the benefits of scientific progress would probably be eaten up by a growing population. At his father’s urging, Robert Malthus developed his ideas into a book, An Essay on the Principle of Population, which he published anonymously in 1798. In this famous book, Malthus pointed out that under optimum conditions, every biological population, including that of humans, is capable of increasing exponentially. For humans under optimum conditions, the population can double every twenty-five years, quadruple every fifty years and increase by a factor of 8 every seventy- five years. It can grow by a factor of 16 every century, and by a factor of 256 every two centuries, and so on.

Obviously, human populations cannot increase at this rate for very long, since if they did, the earth would be completely choked with people in a very few centuries. Therefore, Malthus pointed out, various forces must be operating to hold the population in check. Malthus listed first the “positive checks” to population growth - disease, famine and war - which we now call the “Malthusian forces”. In addition, he listed checks of another kind - birth control (which he called “Vice”), late marriage, and “Moral Restraint”. Being a clergyman, Malthus naturally favored moral restraint.

According to Malthus, a population need not outrun its food supply, provided that late marriage, birth control or moral restraint are practiced; but without these less painful checks, the population will quickly grow to the point where the grim Malthusian forces - famine, disease and war - begin to act.

Curiously, it was France, a Catholic country, which led the way in the development of birth control. Robert Owen (who was an enlightened English industrialist, and the founder of the cooperative movement), wished to advise his workers about birth control; and so he went to France to learn about the techniques practiced there. In 1825, an article (by Richard Carlile) appeared in The Republican. The article described the importation of birth control from France to England as follows:

“...It was suggested to Mr. Owen that, in his new establishments, the healthy state of the inhabitants would tend to breed an excess of children. The matter was illustrated and explained to him, so that he felt the force of it. He was told that on the Continent, the women used some means of preventing conception which were uniformly successful. Mr. Owen set out for Paris to discover the process. He consulted the most eminent physicians, and assured himself of what was the common practice among their women.”

“...A piece of soft sponge is tied by a bobbin or penny ribbon, and inserted before sexual intercourse takes place, and is withdrawn again as soon as it has taken place... If the sponge be large enough, that is, as large as a green walnut or a small apple, it will prevent conception, without diminishing the pleasures of married life.”

Carlile goes on to say:

“...When the number of working people in any trade or manufacture has for some years been too great, wages are reduced very low, and the working people become little better than slaves... By limiting the number of children, the wages of both children and grown persons will rise; and the hours of working will be no more than they ought to be.” Birth control and late marriage have (until now) kept the grim predictions of Ricardo and Malthus from being fulfilled in the developed industrial nations of the modern world. Most of these nations have gone through a process known as the “demographic transition” - the shift from an equilibrium where population growth is held in check by the Malthusian forces of disease, starvation and war, to one where it is held in check by birth control and late marriage.

The transition begins with a fall in the death rate, caused by various factors, among which the most important is the application of scientific knowledge to the prevention of disease. Cultural patterns require some time to adjust to the lowered death rate, and so the birth rate continues to be high. Families continue to have six or seven children, just as they did when most of the children died before having children of their own. Therefore, at the start of the demographic transition, the population increases sharply. After a certain amount of time, however, cultural patterns usually adjust to the lowered death rate, and a new equilibrium is established, where both the birth rate and the death rate are low.

In Europe, this period of adjustment required about two hundred years. In 1750, the death rate began to fall sharply: By 1800, it had been cut in half, from 35 deaths per thousand people in 1750 to 18 in 1800; and it continued to fall. Meanwhile, the birth rate did not fall, but even increased to 40 births per thousand per year in 1800. Thus the number of children born every year was more than twice the number needed to compensate for the deaths!

By 1800, the population was increasing by more than two percent every year. In 1750, the population of Europe was 150 million; by 1800, it was roughly 220 million; by 1950 it had exceeded 540 million, and in 1970 it was 646 million.

Meanwhile the achievements of medical science and the reduction of the effects of famine and warfare had been affecting the rest of the world: In 1750, the non-European population of the world was only 585 million. By 1850 it had reached 877 million. During the century between 1850 and 1950, the population of Asia, Africa and Latin America more than doubled, reaching 1.8 billion in 1950. In the twenty years between 1950 and 1970, the population of Asia, Africa and Latin America increased still more sharply, and in 1970, this segment of the world’s population reached 2.6 billion, bringing the world total to 3.6 billion.

The fastest increase was in Latin America, where population almost doubled during the twenty years between 1950 and 1970.

The latest figures show that the population explosion is leveling off in Europe, Russia, North America and Japan, where the demographic transition is almost complete. However, the population of the rest of the world is still increasing at a breakneck speed; and it cannot continue to expand at this rate for very much longer without producing widespread famine.

Colonialism

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the continually accelerating development of science and science-based industry began to affect the whole world. As the factories of Europe poured out cheap manufactured goods, a change took place in the patterns of world trade: Before the Industrial Revolution, trade routes to Asia had brought Asian spices, textiles and luxury goods to Europe. For example, cotton cloth and fine textiles, woven in India, were imported to England. With the invention of spinning and weaving machines, the trade was reversed. Cheap cotton cloth, manufactured in England, began to be sold in India, and the Indian textile industry withered.

The rapid development of technology in the west also opened an enormous gap in military strength between the industrialized nations and the rest of the world. Taking advantage of their superior weaponry, the advanced industrial nations rapidly carved the remainder of the world into colonies, which acted as sources of raw materials and food, and as markets for manufactured goods.

In North America, the native Indian population had proved vulnerable to European diseases, such as smallpox, and large numbers of them had died. The remaining Indians were driven westward by streams of immigrants arriving from Europe. In Central and South America, European diseases proved equally fatal to the Indians. Often the industrialized nations made their will felt by means of naval bombardements: In 1854, Commodore Perry and an American fleet forced Japan to accept foreign traders by threatening to bombard Tokyo. In 1856, British warships bombarded Canton in China to punish acts of violence against Europeans living in the city. In 1864, a force of European and American warships bombarded Choshu in Japan, causing a revolution. In 1882, Alexandria was bombarded, and in 1896,

Zanzibar.

Between 1800 and 1875, the percentage of the earth’s surface under European rule increased from 35 percent to 67 percent. In the period between 1875 and 1914, there was a new wave of colonial expansion, and the fraction of the earth’s surface under the domination of colonial powers (Europe, the United States and Japan) increased to 85 percent, if former colonies are included.

During the period between 1880 and 1914, English industrial and colonial dominance began to be challenged. Industrialism had spread from England to Belgium, Germany and the United States, and, to a lesser extent, to France, Italy, Russia and Japan. By 1914, Germany was producing twice as much steel as Britain, and the United States was producing four times as much.

New techniques in weaponry were introduced, and a naval armaments race began among the major industrial powers. The English found that their old navy was obsolete, and they had to rebuild. Thus, the period of colonial expansion between 1880 and 1914 was filled with tensions, as the industrial powers raced to arm themselves in competition with each other, and raced to seize as much as possible of the rest of the world.

Much that was beautiful and valuable was lost, as mature traditional cultures collapsed, overcome by the power and temptations of modern industrial civilization. For the Europeans and Americans of the late 19th century and early 20th century, progress was a religion, and imperialism was its crusade. The cruelties of the crusade were justified, in the eyes of the westerners, by their mission to “civilize” and Christianize the rest of the world. To a certain extent, the industrial countries were right in feeling that they had something of value to offer to the rest of the world; and among the people whom they sent out were educators and medical workers who often accepted lives of extreme discomfort and danger in order to be of service.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the world was divided into parts: China was a world in itself; India was a separate world; Africa south of the Sahara was another enclosed world; and the Islamic world was also self-contained, as was the west. By 1900, there was only one world, bound together by constantly-growing ties of trade and communication.

Chapter 9: EVOLUTION.

Suggestions for further reading

1. Marie Boaz, Robert Boyle and Seventeenth Century Chemistry, Cambridge University Press (1958).
2. J.G. Crowther, Scientists of the Industrial Revolution, The Cresset Press, London (1962).
3. R.E. Schofield, The Lunar Society of Birmingham, Oxford University Press (1963).
4. L.T.C. Rolt, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Arrow Books, London (1961).
5. J.D. Bernal, Science in History, Penguin Books Ltd. (1969).
6. Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, Unwin Books, London (1952).
7. Wilbert E. Moore, The Impact of Industry, Prentice Hall (1965).
8. Charles Moraz´e, The Nineteenth Century, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London (1976).
9. Carlo M. Cipolla (editor), The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Fontana/Collins, Glasgow (1977).
10. Richard Storry, A History of Modern Japan, Penguin Books Ltd. (1960).
11. Martin Gerhard Geisbrecht, The Evolution of Economic Society, W.H. Freeman and Co. (1972).

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