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The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up

fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and

Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the

colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in

commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to

industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the

revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid

development.

The feudal system of industry, under which industrial production

was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the

growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took

its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the

manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the

different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of

labour in each single workshop.