motor-powers

Updated: May 20, 2025

Therefore, even today, we find that wherever that condition which we call modern civilisation prevails, and in proportion as it tends to prevail wherever steam-power, electricity, or the forces of wind and water, are compelled by man's intellectual activity to act as the motor-powers in the accomplishment of human toil, wherever the delicate adaptions of scientifically constructed machinery are taking the place of the simple manipulation of the human hand there has arisen, all the world over, a large body of males who find that their ancient fields of labour have slipped or are slipping from them, and who discover that the modern world has no place or need for them.

Olive Schreiner - Woman and Labour