In Chapter 1 we said that technology is the means we use to change and exploit our surroundings. This is done because it is believed that these changes are for the better: that it is better to have a city here, a coal mine there, and so forth. (We make no judgement here about whether it really is better to have the coal mine, etc.) While Homo sapiens has always had technology, use has not always been on a large scale and hence has not always produced economic growth. It seems that the condition for the large-scale use of technologies is that the society in question is, or has been, industrial. (The qualification is needed because some highly technological societies are now termed post-industrial: they are no longer properly called industrial, but they were industrial at some time.) Thus, the process by which a society becomes industrialised is relevant to our overall purposes because it has to do with the optimal conditions for the application of technology.