" While it is indeed true that the switch from artisans and craftsmen to factories and machines entailed a great deal of suffering, I should nevertheless have mentioned that without the new techniques of mass production it would have been quite impossible to feed, clothe and house the steadily increasing population.
The very fact that more and more children were being born, and fewer and fewer of them were dying soon after, was largely due to the scientific advance of medicine which insisted on such things as piped running water and proper sewerage. True, the growing industrialisation of Europe, America and of Japan has meant the loss of much that is beautiful, but we must not forget how many blessings – and I mean blessings – it has brought us. "

― E.H. Gombrich , A Little History of the World