Machinery

Abstract

Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles, was a Midlands doctor and dilettante whose friends included the brilliant circle of industrialists, scientists and philosophers who met as the Birmingham Lunar Society. The group included James Watt, Josiah Wedgwood the pottery manufacturer, and Joseph Priestley, scientist and political radical, and was eager to explore advances in technology, economics and political ideas. They constituted a provincial radical intelligentsia but in a sense they were not yet fully committed to the industrial system. They did not have to devote all their energies to keeping their place in the struggle of the market and could afford to let their minds range speculatively over a great variety of topics. Darwin’s little hymn to the steam engine is typical of this frame of mind. The machine is intriguing and ingenious; it has yet to become obsessive.