"The industrial revolution was also a revolution of ideas."

"The conjuncture of growing supplies of land, labour, and capital made possible the expansion of industry; coal and steam provided the fuel and power for large-scale manufacture; low rates of interest, rising prices, and high expectations of profit offered the incentive. But behind and beyond these material and economic factors lay something more. Trade with foreign parts had widened men’s views of the world, and science their conception of the universe: the industrial revolution was also a revolution of ideas. ...
    "It was under [the] influence [of Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations'wire] that the idea of a more or less fixed volume of trade and employment, directed and regulated by the State, gave way—gradually and with many setbacks—to thoughts of unlimited progress in a free and expanding economy."

~ T.S. Ashton, from his 1948 classic The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830, quoted at the 'Roots of Progress' blog [their emphasis]