ABSTRACT
The relation i n which the consumer, the common man, stands to the mechanical routine of life at large is of much the same nature as tha t i n which the modern skilled workman stands to that detail machine process in to which he is dovetailed i n the industrial system. T o take effectual advantage of what is offered as the wheels of routine go round, i n the way of work and play, l ive l i hood and recreation, he must know by facile habitua t ion what is going on and how and i n what quantities and at what price and where and when, and for the best effect he must adapt his movements w i t h skilled exacti tude and a cool mechanical insight to the nicely balanced moving equil ibrium of the mechanical processes engaged. T o l ive-not to say at ease-under the exigencies of
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be added that i n all the concomitance and sequence w i t h which the mathematical formulations of mechanical phe nomena are occupied, the assumption of concomitance or sequence at a distance w i l l f i l l the requirements of the formulae quite as convincingly and commonly more simply than the assumption of concomitance by contact only. T o realise the difficulties which beset this postulate of action by mechanical continui ty solely, as well as the prima facie imbecil i ty of the principle itself, i t is only necessary to call to mind the tortuous theories of gravi ta t ion designed to keep i t intact, and the prodigy of i n congruous intangibilities known as the ether,—a r ig id and imponderable fluid.
