ABSTRACT
I F the industrial revolution had meant no more than a series of technical improvements, and if its consequences had not gone beyond changes in machinery and production, it would only have been an event of secondary importance and would not occupy much space in general history. But through the medium of material things, which are the visible expressioxl of the needs, designs and activities of men, it reacted on man himself. I t set its stamp, first in England and then in all civilized countries, on the whole of modern society. To admit this is not necessarily to accept without reserve the materialistic interpretation of history. Whether we look at society from the outside and as a whole, as composed of a population whose growth and distribution follow definite laws, or whether we study its internal structure, with the formation, functions and relationships of its various classes, on all sides we find traces of this great movement which in changing the system of production changed at the same time all the conditions of life for the whole of society.
