ABSTRACT
During the early Middle Ages the Europeans derived their law, philosophy and aesthetic standards from the civilisations of Greece and Rome and they derived their techniques from the Arabs and the Chinese. Throughout this period and the subsequent renaissance England was a backward country, technologically and no doubt in other ways too. The invention of the Newcomen atmospheric engine and, more particularly, its rapid spread, confirms that abundant skill was available. This machine was, in Bacon's sense, a science-based invention for the principle of its action was the discovery by seventeenth century scientists that the Earth's atmosphere exerts a considerable pressure. By the beginning of the eighteenth century had become a growth industry in England. There are two important points about the textile revolution. Firstly, apart from the general technology of power supplies and the introduction of bleaching powders, it was an affair entirely of empirical inventions. The second point is inferential.
