ABSTRACT
In its bearing on modern life and modern business, the "machine process" means something more comprehensive and less external than a mere aggregate of mechanical appliances for the mediation of human labor. It means that, but it means something more than that. Wherever manual dexterity, the rule of thumb, and the fortuitous conjunctures of the seasons have been supplanted by a reasoned procedure on the basis of a systematic knowledge of the forces employed, there the mechanical industry is to be found, even in the absence of intricate mechanical contrivance. No one of the mechanical processes carried on by the use of a given outfit of appliances is independent of other processes going on elsewhere. The modern industrial communities show an unprecedented uniformity and precise equivalence in legally adopted weights and measures. As a matter of course, tools and the various structural materials used are made of standard sizes, shapes, and gauges.
