We have used the words "mechanical life," "the mechanical kingdom,"
"the mechanical world" and so forth, and we have done so advisedly,
for as the vegetable kingdom was slowly developed from the mineral,
and as in like manner the animal supervened upon the vegetable, so
now in these last few ages an entirely new kingdom has sprung up, of
which we as yet have only seen what will one day be considered the
antediluvian prototypes of the race.

We regret deeply that our knowledge both of natural history and of
machinery is too small to enable us to undertake the gigantic task of
classifying machines into the genera and sub-genera, species,
varieties and sub-varieties, and so forth, of tracing the connecting
links between machines of widely different characters, of pointing
out how subservience to the use of man has played that part among
machines which natural selection has performed in the animal and
vegetable kingdoms, of pointing out rudimentary organs {1} which
exist in some few machines, feebly developed and perfectly useless,
yet serving to mark descent from some ancestral type which has either
perished or been modified into some new phase of mechanical
existence. We can only point out this field for investigation; it
must be followed by others whose education and talents have been of a
much higher order than any which we can lay claim to.

Some few hints we have determined to venture upon, though we do so
with the profoundest diffidence. Firstly, we would remark that as
some of the lowest of the vertebrata attained a far greater size than
has descended to their more highly organised living representatives,
so a diminution in the size of machines has often attended their
development and progress. Take the watch for instance. Examine the