Your Committee, in this their Report, have no intention of entering into any consideration of the abstract mathematical principle on which the practicability of such a Machine as Mr. Babbage's relies, nor of its public utility when completed. They consider the former as not only sufficiently clear in itself, but as already admitted and acted on by the Council in their former proceedings. The latter they regard as obvious to every one who considers the immense advantage of accurate numerical Tables in all matters of calculation, especially in those which relate to astronomy and navigation, and the great variety and extent of those which it is professedly the object and within the compass of Mr. Babbage's Engine to calculate, and print with perfect accuracy.

The original object of the present Machine was to compute any tables which could be calculated by six orders of differences, and twelve figures in each, and sixteen figures in the table itself, in such a form that, by bestowing a very moderate degree of attention to their publication, it would be impossible for a single figure to be erroneous; and supposing any person employing them to entertain a doubt whether that moderate degree of care had been bestowed, he might in a short time himself verify the tables. The Machine was intended to produce the work stamped on plates of copper, or other proper material.