"The preparation for the machine that took place between the tenth and the eighteenth century gave it a broad foundation and assured its speedy and universal conquest throughout Western Civilization. But in back of this lay the long development of technics itself: the original exploration of the raw environment, the utilization of objects shaped by nature--shells and stones and animal gut- for tools and utensils: the development of fundamental industrial processes, digging, chipping, hammering, scraping, spinning, drying: the deliberate shaping of specific tools as necessities pressed and as skill increased."