{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_75418/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_75418","id":"gutenberg_75418","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75418","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Economics","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Machinery","Machinery in the workplace"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Note\n  Italic text displayed as: _italic_\n  Bold text displayed as: =bold=\n\n\n\n\nOUROBOROS\n\n\n\n\n  TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW\n\n  _For the Contents of this Series see the end of\n  the Book_\n\n\n\n\n  OUROBOROS\n\n  OR\n\n  THE MECHANICAL\n  EXTENSION OF MANKIND\n\n\n  BY\n  GARET GARRETT\n\n\n  LONDON:\n  KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.\n  NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.\n\n\n_Ouroboros was a fabulous snake, the encircling serpent, that swallowed\nits own tail. It represented an infantile thought of the human mind for\nwish-fulfilment by magical means. Man\u2019s heroic business was to conquer\nthe reptile. As he did this he seized the object he most desired. He\nmight even wish himself into solid gold._\n\n\nMade and Printed in Great Britain by M. F. Robinson & Co. Ltd. at the\nLibrary Press, Lowest\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\n  I THE QUEST SINCE ADAM                                               7\n\n  II THE MACHINE AS IF                                                23\n\n  III THE LAW OF MACHINES                                             31\n\n  IV WHO MIND THEM OR STARVE                                          42\n\n  V THE PARADOX OF SURPLUS                                            58\n\n  VI IN PERIL OF TRADE                                                72\n\n  VII DIM VISTAS NEW                                                  84\n\n\n\n\nOUROBOROS\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE QUEST SINCE ADAM\n\n\nOne story of us is continuous. It is the story of our struggle to\nrecapture the Garden of Eden, meaning by that a state of existence free\nfrom the doom of toil.\n\nSo long as the character of our economic life was agricultural, as it\nalmost wholly was until a very recent time, the attack was na\u00efve. In\nthe file of prayers, if one is kept, the thickest, dustiest bundle is\nthat of our supplications for plenty\u2014miraculous plenty without worry or\nprice. We were loth to believe that the second arrangement between God\nand Adam made at the gate of exit:\n\n    Cursed is the ground for thy sake;\n    In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread\n\nwas forever; and for a long time afterward local weather conditions\nwere wistfully misunderstood, as a chastisement when they were bad and\na sign of relenting when they were good. It was forever. Nature\u2019s ring\nwas closed, never again to open for any darling fructuary.\n\nThat is to say, man\u2019s taking from the soil is an arbitrary wage. He\nmay increase the gross of it a little by exerting himself more: the\nscale he cannot alter. If tilth for the individual has been made easier\nsomewhat and more productive by the use of wheeled implements, power\ntools and now airplanes to dust the orchard with insecticide, these,\nyou must remember, represent a tremendous increase of effort by mankind\nat large upon the principle of limited fecundity that governs the earth.\n\nWhen at length the realistic mind perceived that here was a natural\nfact upon which prayers, thanksgiving, sacrifice, idolatry, and the\npretentions of magic were all alike wasted, the spiritual part of us no\ndoubt had been willing to accept the sentence. Not so the earthy and\nlusty part. The curse was heavy. There was never a risk man would not\ntake, no kind of heroic exertion he would spare himself, to escape the\nevil, the boredom, the drudgery of repetitious toil.\n\nFrom such puerile motivation came the Age of Discovery, then physical\nscience, purposeful mechanical invention, the industrial era, and\nall the artificial marvels of the modern world. These effects are\nhistorically traceable; and, if it should occur to you to wonder\nwhy they are so much more vivid and astonishing in the West than in\nthe East, that is easily explained. The European mind went on with\nthe phantasy of an earthly paradise of plenty and leisure after the\nOriental mind in weariness of wisdom had given it up.\n\nUntil four hundred years ago the Europeans believed that somewhere in\nthe world was a fabulous land whose inhabitants lived as in dreams,\neating and drinking from golden vessels, wearing priceless jewels like\ncommon beads, sated with ease and luxury. King, courts, astronomers\nand navigators believed this. The vulgar fancy was for a place such as\nCockaigne of the medieval ballads, where all features of the landscape\nwere good to eat or drink and nobody ever was obliged to work. In quest\nof this mythical region the pioneer feats of circumnavigation were\nperformed.\n\nWhat a disparity between the character of the motive and the shape of\nthe dead!\u2014or is it that men do not know their motives?\n\nThe earth was explored. It was found to be round and full of labour.\nThis, of course, was a terrible disappointment.\n\nThe ceaseless mind then turned to alchemy with the idea that base\nmetals were changeable into gold; from this came chemistry and the\nstudy of matter and physical phenomena in a new way, taking nothing for\ngranted. This was the beginning of true Science. As to what might come\nof it practically there was at first only the rudest kind of notion.\nDimly it was understood that exact knowledge must somehow increase\nman\u2019s power, give him control of the elementary circumstance, enable\nhim perhaps to command that which hitherto he had got by hazard. When\na great body of fact-knowledge had been accumulated, men began to see\nlittle by little how it might be dynamically applied. Then the epoch of\nMechanical Invention.\n\nThe idea of machines was not new. Long before the beginning of the\nChristian era the ancients had produced many wonderful automatic\ndevices; but mechanical knowledge with them was a department of magic.\nThe use of machines was to mystify the multitude. Brazen figures were\nmade to move, dragons to hiss, temple doors to open and close, trees\nto emit musical sounds, and lamps to trim themselves perpetually by\nmeans of floats, cogwheels, cylinders, valves, and pistons\u2014all acting\non sound principles of pneumatics and hydraulics. Much of this ancient\ntechnology was lost or forgotten. The European mind rediscovered it\ngradually in a spirit of scientific curiosity, with no clear economic\nintention. And, but for a simple practical idea, one that was very slow\nto come through, the machine no doubt would still be what it anciently\nwas\u2014an object of superstition, the toy of wonder, an accessory of\npriestcraft.\n\nAnd what an obvious idea it was!\u2014merely to exploit the machine\u2019s slave\nvalue. Merely to see an engine as a beast of burden and the loom as a\nprojection of the hand, both instruments of magnified production, to\nspare the labour of mankind.\n\nThat moment in which the use of mechanical energy came to be so\nconceived was one of elemental significance. All the chances of human\nlife were altered, though not as anyone supposed or as they were meant\nto be.\n\nThe course of internal evolution requires to be imagined. It is slow\nbeyond perception. It may not be a fact; or, for aught we know, it may\nbe finished in the species. Suddenly man begins to augment himself by\nan external process. His natural powers become extensible to a degree\nthat makes them original in kind. To his given structure\u2014the weakest\namong animal structures in proportion to its bulk\u2014he adds an automatic,\nartificial member, responsive only to his contact, answerable only to\nhis will, uncontrolled by nature, fabulous in its possibilities of\nstrength, variation, and cunning.\n\nHis use of it in three generations has changed the design of\ncivilization out of recognition. That change alone which sets our time\noff abruptly from all time before is the fact of potential plenty. We\ntake this for granted as if it were a natural fact, whereas, instead,\nall the circumstances have been invented.\n\nWe who are born to the view cannot see it. We cannot imagine what it\nwas like to live in a world where famine was a frequent visitation and\nall things were scarce. Yet never until now has the human race known\nwhat plenty was. Immemorially the word has signified food.\n\n See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field the Lord has\n blessed. God give thee of the dew of the heaven and the fatness of the\n earth and plenty of wine and corn.\n\nThe cornucopia, horn of plenty, never contained a fabricated thing\u2014only\nthe fruits of the earth.\n\nThat old meaning of the word has been recently lost. Modernly we speak\nof \u2018goods\u2019; we talk of the standard of living, which is understood\nof course to include proper quantities of food, and to mean, besides\nfood, an endless number of artificial things which people increasingly\nrequire for their comfort and well-being.\n\nMechanical energy does not produce food. Nor has the principle of\nlimited fecundity that governs the earth been suspended. Yet the\nmachine has enormously increased the food-supply in two ways: first,\nagriculture is equipped with power\u2014tools, so that one man now may\nperform the labour of many; second, transportation has made all the\nfood-producing areas of the world accessible, so that grain from the\nmiddle of the North American continent and grain from Argentina are\nmingled unawares in the European loaf.\n\nThis use of the machine to distribute food swiftly over the whole world\nfrom where there is a surplus to where that surplus is needed has\nhad profound political, economic, and social consequences, beginning\nwith an increase of the human species vastly beyond any number that\nhad at any time previously existed or could ever before have been\nsustained upon the earth. That is the one most awesome phenomenon of\nthe industrial era. The North American continent has been peopled from\nEuropean stock. Its present population is equal to that of all Europe\nin 1800. This drain of emigration notwithstanding, the population of\nEurope in the same time has trebled.\n\nAnd still there is plenty.\n\nWhere it is not actual, it is potential. Who have not plenty are either\ntoo inert or too ignorant to put forth the modern effort. What people\nmay use, enjoy, and consume now is an _x_ quantity, determined neither\nby the rhythms of nature nor any biological principle, but simply by\nthe free total of their own exertions.\n\nFaster than the race has multiplied the powers of the machine have\nincreased. One of these is the power of transportation, whereby the\nfood product of the whole earth is made uniformly available. The other\npower is represented by a divisible product of artificial things\ntending to exceed the sum of effective human desire.\n\nTo wishful desire there is no limit whatever; but there is a point at\nwhich the effort necessary to obtain the object\u2014that is, the toil\u2014will\nbe weighed against the desire to possess it, and only when and if the\nobject is deemed worth the effort is desire effective in the economic\nsense.\n\nFrom the paradox mentioned\u2014that tendency of the machine\u2019s divisible\nproduct to overwhelm the sum of effective desire\u2014we get a series\nof complex phenomena of which there is nowhere yet a complete\nunderstanding.\n\nThis now is a buyer\u2019s world where formerly it was the seller\u2019s.\nBusiness no longer sits in Asiatic dignity waiting for its customers;\nit must up and seek them. The buyer is pursued.\n\nAs I write, the strains of a Liszt rhapsody float through my window.\nThey come from a farmer\u2019s cottage a little way down the road. Yesterday\na motor-truck stopped at his house and unloaded a self-playing piano. I\nsaw it and noticed that it got slightly damaged squeezing through the\ntiny doorway.\n\nWhat does this mean? First, it means that the day before yesterday a\nsalesman from the city went through this road selling self-playing\npianos for a nominal cash sum down and the balance on monthly\ninstalments. He sold one there, another in the next house but one, and\na third further on. How many he sold to the end of the road I do not\nknow.\n\nBut what does it mean that the city sends a man through a country road\nin southern New Jersey to sell pianos in this beguiling manner to\npeople who cannot afford them? Those who bought them I know were all\nin debt for other things bought on the instalment plan. It means there\nis a necessity to sell this industrial product. It is the necessity of\na factory that has overtaken the normal demand for self-playing pianos\nand must force the sale of its surplus. It is the necessity of all who\nwork in that factory and live thereby. It is the necessity of industry\nin general, governed as it is by a principle it did not invent.\n\nThe principle is that the divisible product of the machine is cheap in\nproportion to the quantity. Remember that principle. We shall meet it\nagain.\n\nAs with player-pianos and radio-sets in my country road, so with all\nmanner of artificial things, with the whole divisible product of the\nmachine, in every road, every street, every market of the world. How\nto produce enough is no longer any problem at all. How to sell what\nis increasingly produced\u2014that is the problem. Evidence thereof is the\ncommonest thing we see. It is painted in the landscape. It illuminates\nthe cities at night. It is in our marginal vision when we read. There\nis no lifting one\u2019s eyes to heaven, no casting them down in shame, no\nseeing whatever without seeing it.\n\nEach day a forest is cut down and consumed for wood-pulp to make the\npaper on which producers advertize their wares. The use of advertizing\nis to stimulate in people a sense of wanting. Selling is a high\nprofession to which men are trained in special schools. To exchange\ngoods for money over a counter, to higgle with the individual\nbuyer\u2014that is not selling. Clerks and peddlers do that. Selling is\nto create new ways of wanting, new habits of comfort and luxury, new\ncustoms of having. This is done by agitating the mass-imagination\nwith the suggestive power of advertizing. Business reserves its most\ndazzling rewards for one who can think of a way to make thousands,\nmillions, whole races of people want that thing to-day which they knew\nnot the lack of yesterday.\n\nWhy is this so? Because there is never enough wanting.\n\nAnd why is there never enough wanting? Because the divisible product of\nthe machine tends to increase faster than wanting.\n\nWhat advertizing cannot accomplish governments may undertake. There are\nbackward, inert, idle races that do not want much. They are content\nto do with little. It becomes therefore the diplomatic and military\nbusiness of the powerful industrial governments to change the ways of\nsuch races. They must be brought forward, modernized, electrified,\ntaught how to want more. Why? In order that they shall be able to\nconsume their quota of the machine\u2019s divisible product. Plenty shall be\nput upon them.\n\nThere is no limit to that blessing. Those who have it are anxious to\nshare it, must share it in fact, in order to keep it for themselves,\nunder the principle that the cheapness of things is in proportion to\nthe quantity produced. The more the cheaper; the fewer the dearer.\n\nAre you beginning to suppose that man has found what he sought? Since\nin this extraordinary manner he appears to have provided himself with\nplenty, shall that dusty bundle of prayers be recalled or sent to the\nfurnace?\n\nAs to his prayers, they were never frank. Perhaps for that reason he\nshould wish he had them back. He prayed for plenty; what he secretly\nassociated with the thought of plenty was leisure\u2014freedom from toil.\nAnd once more he is disappointed, thwarted by his own inventions.\nPlenty he has achieved. Toil he has not escaped.\n\nThe machine that was to have been a labour-saving device becomes an\nengine of production that must be served. It is as if you could not\nsave labour at all\u2014as if you could make it only more productive,\nthereby achieving an abundance of things with no effect whatever upon\nthe necessity to perform monotonous labour. All this labour-saving\nmachinery we live with notwithstanding, never were people more\ncomplaining of their tasks. That might mean only that they were\nincreasingly conscious of an abating evil; but there is no certainty\nthat the abatement even where it is noticeable is permanent. The signs\nare otherwise.\n\nIn all material respects people are better off than ever before. Their\nbodies are more comfortable, their minds are free from the terror\nof hunger, they have much more to enjoy and consume and hope for,\nbecause their labour is more richly rewarded in things. See the amazing\nquantity and variety of things such as only the rich could once afford\nnow circulating at the base of the human pyramid. Not necessaries only.\nSilks, watches, ornaments, shoes like those of queens and ladies,\nplated ware, upholstered furniture, soft beds, besides things that were\nformerly non-existent and therefore beyond the reach of kings, sultans\nand nabobs, such as electric lights, plumbing, motor-cars. In the\nUnited States a motor-car to every six persons! And still no sign that\nthe curve of human contentment is rising; no sign that the curse of\ntoil will ever be got rid of.\n\nInstead of saving labour the machine has multiplied it. True, the hours\nof industrial labour are fewer than they were, e.g. now eight where\nthey were ten and twelve a day; but this is merely to compare worse\nwith better where better is, and that is not everywhere. For a proper\ncontrast compare the industrial with the idyllic task. Even eight\nhours of labour a day continuously performed by the industrial worker\nrepresents a much greater sum of annual effort than his ancestor put\ninto the soil. Consider also how the machine, directly or indirectly,\nhas laid new work upon races hitherto naively existing in a state of\nnature.\n\nThe riddle is that industrial civilization, having created to its\nunknown ends a race of mechanical drudges, requires nevertheless a\ncontribution of human toil more intense, more exacting, more irksome\nthan ever. As toil it is more productive\u2014there is more to consume. Life\nhas been expanded. It is safer. Physically it is inconceivably richer.\nWas that the goal? What else is gained?\n\nYou would think that when man had found a way to provide himself with\nartificial things in unlimited plenty and a way at the same time to\nspread the food supply evenly over the face of the earth, the gift\nof universal peace might follow. Never was the peace more frail; and\nthis, as we shall see\u2014the frailty of the peace\u2014is also a product of the\nmachine.\n\nWhat force is this by fumbling found that man has put in motion? Its\npulsations he controls; its consequences so far have controlled him,\nand modern life has become so involved in a mechanical spiral that we\ncannot say for certain whether it is that we produce for the sake of\nconsumption or consume for the sake of production.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE MACHINE AS IF\n\n\nEither the machine has a meaning to life that we have not yet been able\nto interpret in a rational manner or it is itself a manifestation of\nlife and therefore mysterious. We have seen it grow. We know it to be\nthe exterior reality of our own ideas. Thus we are very familiar with\nit, as with our arms and legs, and see it in much the same way\u2014that is\nto say, imperfectly and in some aspects not at all. Certainly it would\nlook very different if for a moment we could see it from an original\npoint of view with the eye of new wonder.\n\nFancy yourself a planetary tourist come visiting here, knowing\nbeforehand neither God nor man, unable therefore to distinguish\nintuitively between their works.\n\nWould you not think the machine that spins silk threads by the ton\nfrom cellulose more wonderful than the silkworm similarly converting\nthe mulberry leaf in precious quantities, or a steel ship more amazing\nthan a whale? What of the mechanical beast with a colorless fluid in\nits tail and a flame in its nose that runs sixty miles an hour without\nweariness? Would it not seem superior in many ways to the horse that\ngoes forty miles in a day and falls down?\n\nSuppose, moreover, that you know the tongue of men and are able to ask\nthem questions. You ask particularly about the automobile, which you\nhave mentally compared with the horse; whereupon they take you to the\nfactories in Detroit to see the automobile in process of becoming,\nunder conditions of mass-production, two or three taking life with a\nsnort every minute. In this factory, they tell you, they make only one\nhundred a day, very fine ones; but in another they make five hundred,\nand in another five thousand a day.\n\nYou ask them who makes the horse.\n\nThey do not know. They teach their children to say God makes it. The\nhorse is a natural thing.\n\nThen the automobile is an unnatural thing?\n\nThey say no, smiling a little. Not an unnatural thing. The automobile\nis a mechanical thing because they make it themselves.\n\nYou ask them why they say they make it.\n\nAt this they are distressed. There has been some slip of understanding\nin the use of language. They explain it carefully. The horse is born.\nThere is no horse-factory. The automobile is made, as you have seen, in\nfactories.\n\nStill it is not explained. You argue it with them. What is it they do\nin the factory? They perform certain acts in relation to automobiles.\nThese, of course, are necessary, vital acts. If they were not\nperformed, automobiles could not be. And yet, how does this prove they\nmake automobiles? You ask them.\n\nThey ask you to say what else it could prove.\n\nYou may say it proves only that they are fathers of automobiles; and,\nsince they seem mystified greatly by this answer, you remind them that\nin relation to their own children also they perform certain vital acts,\nessential to beget them and without which children could not be, yet\nthey are never heard to say they make children. They say children are\nborn.\n\nThis has to be left as it is. Further explanations lead to worse\nconfusion.\n\nYou ask them certain other questions. How long have they been on the\nearth\u2014themselves? How long have they had machines? What did they do\nbefore they had machines?\n\nBy their replies certain facts are established in your mind, and from\nthese facts you make certain deductions, all clear enough to you but\nincomprehensible to them.\n\nThe facts are as follows: People have been here on the earth a very\nlong time, millions of years they think. Machines they have had\nfor only a very short time, or, as you now see them, for only two\ngenerations. Before they had machines nearly everyone tilled the soil.\nThere was no industry save handicraft. In the space of one hundred\nyears these conditions have so remarkably changed that now only half\nthe people are required to till the soil; the other half live by\nindustry. This does not mean what you thought at first; it does not\nmean that half the fields have been abandoned so that half the people\nmight go into industry. You are careful to get this straight, for\nit is very important. On the contrary, since machines appeared whole\nnew continents of land have been opened to cultivation. This was\nnecessary in order to feed the industrial workers who live in cities,\nfar off from fields, and buy their food, whereas formerly everyone\ngenerally speaking produced his own food, even the people of what once\nwere called cities going forth seasonally to till and reap the earth.\nActually, the number of people engaged in agriculture has greatly\nincreased; yet it is only half the population where before it was the\nwhole of it. What does this mean? It means that since the advent of\nmachines the human race has enormously increased in number; it has so\nincreased that the half of it which now is agricultural is greater\nthan the whole of it was before. The new, non-agricultural half is the\nindustrial part: it is the part that serves machines.\n\nThis fact is so astonishing that you wish to verify it. You ask them\nwhat would happen if all the machines in the world should vanish\nsuddenly away. Their answer is that half the people living would perish\nin a week. And that is what you thought.\n\nWhat may you deduce from these facts?\n\nFirst, you will be amused that people are so na\u00efve as to think they\nmake machines. Then you may say there are two kinds of people here,\nagricultural and industrial. The earth makes one kind; machines make\nthe other. And you will feel as sure of this as if you had proved it\nto your senses when you have looked at a typical industrial city where\npeople live densely in compacted habitations with no visible errand on\nearth but to run to and fro tending the machines that hum night and\nday in the factories. Those tall, cylindrical, erupting forms called\nsmokestacks will appear to you as generative symbols. If they were not\nthere, neither would the people be there. Not only would the people\nnot be there. They would be nowhere. They could never have existed. If\nthe smokestacks disappeared, so would all these people, the industrial\npart of the population, leaving only the agricultural part\u2014the part\nbelonging to the soil\u2014as it was before.\n\nAs a planetary tourist, you may be at least as certain these thoughts\nare true as men are that they are untrue; and even if they were true\nthat would make no difference really. The problems are practical. We\nmust think of machines as machines act, logically.\n\nOne difficulty is that whereas the machine is automatically, unerringly\nlogical, and nothing else, man has only a little logic; he has,\nbesides, emotions, sentiments, instincts. In his unlogical character he\nhas often opposed himself to the machine, meaning to destroy it. At the\nopening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first railroad in\nGreat Britain and the first in the world, the anti-machine feeling of\nBritish craftsmen was dramatically symbolized by a lone weaver seated\nat a loom on a high hill. England was the industrial machine\u2019s first\nhabitat on earth. There fanatical men led mobs against it.\n\nFrail and clumsy as it was at first, its life was indestructible. And\nnow man would not dare destroy it if he could. His own life is bound\nup with it. Steadily it has grown more powerful, more productive, more\nominous. It has powers of reproduction and variation which, if not\ninherent, are yet as if governed by an active biological principle.\nMachines produce machines. Besides those from which we get the\ndivisible product of artificial things, there are machines to make\nmachines, and both kinds\u2014(both the machines that make machines and\nthose that transform raw materials into things of use and desire)\u2014obey\nsome law of evolution.\n\nCompare any kind of machine you may happen to think of with what its\nancestor was only twenty-five years ago. Its efficiency has doubled,\ntrebled; its shape has changed; and, as it is in the animal kingdom so\ntoo with machines, suddenly a new species appears, a sport, a freak,\nwith no visible ancestor.\n\nMan\u2019s sense of material power within his environment has increased\nproportionately. It is colossal. Benefits such as formerly he would\nhave thought beyond supernatural agency if he could have imagined\nthem at all he now confers upon himself. More without end presents\nonly technical difficulties. No physical circumstance forbids him.\nNevertheless the fact, and only the more strange it is, that for\nreasons which he names economic or political he seems powerless to\ninform the augmenting body of machine phenomena with a rational or\nbenign spirit.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE LAW OF MACHINES\n\n\nNo longer do we speak of machines. They are too numerous and too\ndifferent. We speak of industrial equipment, which means machine-power\nin general.\n\nAs you may know, the industrial equipment of the world is increasing by\nterrific momentum. The machine is spreading over the face of the earth\nlike an idea new truth. And this is so notwithstanding the fact that\nthe industrial equipment already existing in the world is so great that\nif for one year it were worked at ideal capacity the product could not\nbe sold for enough to pay the wages of labour, to say nothing of the\ncost of material, overhead charges, or profit. Markets would be glutted\nwith goods. Producers would be ruined.\n\nIt follows that the pressing anxiety of industry is how to regulate and\nlimit production in order not to overwhelm its markets. Its chronic\nnightmare is overproduction, meaning a quantity of divisible products\nin excess of the immediate sum of effective desire. Hence combines,\npools, rings, cartels, committees, and associations of manufacturers,\nwhich the courts are powerless to prevent even where they are forbidden\nby law. These are a vital measure of mutual preservation. Yet they are\nbut protocols of truce. They very soon break down and have to be made\nall over again.\n\nControl of production, save here and there for a little while, is\na myth. It could be managed only in case there was a monopoly of\nmachine-power. Once there was. There is no longer, and never will\nbe again. Industrial production, taking it broadly, increases in an\nuncontrollable manner.\n\nThe evidence is notorious, first in the efforts of national industry to\nincrease the sale of goods in its own country, and then in the strife\namong industrial nations for access to foreign markets.\n\nA steam calliope jamming its way through the crowded street of New York\nCity to advertize a new model of a popular motor-car at a reduced price\nis a spectacle to bear reflection. It is a symptom of saturation in\nthe home market. When Henry Ford was making only a thousand cars a day,\nhe did not advertize. There was a ready cash-demand for the whole of\nhis product. When his output passed five thousand cars a day, he began\nto advertize on billboards and to sell on the instalment plan.\n\nAs the natural cash-demand for a thing is overtaken, it begins to be\npressed for sale on credit. At this point finance steps in. Credit\ncompanies with millions of capital are formed expressly for the purpose\nof lending buyers the money with which to buy. Desire shall be made\neffective. Selling on credit in this manner has latterly and suddenly\nassumed such proportions as to represent in the affair of business a\nnew pattern. Some old-fashioned minds have been debating it as an evil.\nThey attack it on the ground that it betrays the virtue of thrift. But\nthrift has ceased to be a virtue. To consume\u2014to consume more and more\nprogressively\u2014to be able to say in the evening \u201cI have consumed more\nto-day than I consumed yesterday\u201d, this now is a duty the individual\nowes to industrial society.\n\nFor see what would happen if people all over the world should return of\na sudden to the former ways of thrift\u2014to the habit of doing without?\nThere would be depression in industry. Machines would stop. Millions\nwho tend them would be disemployed. Nothing would be safe, not even\nyour own money, for there would be panic on the exchange and trouble at\nthe bank.\n\nOne is not speaking of the United States alone. The multiplication of\nthings is greater here than anywhere else because we make machines\nfaster and work them harder; but you will find the same necessity\nacting also in France, the very cradle of thrift, where now cheap\nmotors are sold on credit: anyone who will buy may borrow the money to\nbuy with. Why is this in France? To stimulate the motor habit? To serve\na private profit-motive? The habit will follow; the profit may. But\nthere is another reason, touching foreign trade, which we are coming to\nelucidate.\n\nIn order to sell abroad, an industrial nation must be able to produce\ncheaply. To produce cheaply, it must produce in large quantities by\na multiple method called mass-production. And you can safely manage\nthis mass-production only provided you have a fairly large and constant\nbase of domestic demand. So the sale of French motor-cars in France,\nthough it be on credit, must be large enough to support the method\nof mass-production, for otherwise France would be unable to meet the\ncompetition of Ford, who now exports motor-cars to Europe\u2014even builds\nthem there. Then the British manufacturers, to meet the competition of\nboth France and Ford, also undertake against their genius to produce\nmotor-cars by the quantity method, and, having achieved the method,\ntheir next dilemma is what to do with the product. They advertize at\nhome to create a popular motor-car habit and at the same time press\ntheir cars for sale in foreign markets, even in France and Germany, as\nthese countries press theirs for sale in Great Britain.\n\nCompetition among industrial nations to exploit one another\u2019s internal\nmarkets is but one profile of all that dangerous activity taking place\nin the name of foreign trade. The industrial powers holding their feet\nin China\u2019s doorway and France fighting the native in Morocco are other\naspects of the same thing. China so long as possible shall be an open\nmarket for the surplus product of western machines; there shall be more\nwanting in Morocco.\n\nThe industrial equipment of the world meanwhile goes on increasing,\nthough it is already so great that its capacity cannot be fully\nutilized. In the United States alone there is probably enough surplus\nmachine-capacity to satisfy the whole demand of Great Britain\u2019s\nforeign customers for staple merchandise, such as textiles, iron and\nsteel manufacturers, rubber tires, motor-cars, electrical apparatus,\nmachinery, glass, garments, shoes, cutlery, and so on. Great Britain\nnot only has a surplus of machine-power; she has besides an excess of\nman-power represented by say one and one-quarter millions unemployed.\nShe could easily take on the entire foreign trade of France; but in\nFrance also there is a surplus of machine-power. Both Great Britain\nand France dread the competition of Germany, whose production of goods\nwith her existing equipment could be increased, under incentive, nobody\nknows how much.\n\nThe exterior facts do not make sense. They represent industry to be\nwitless, in that, while dreading surplus as the evil that devoureth\nprofit, it is at the same time bent to push supply to a point beyond\nsaturation. Industry does not do this. Necessity does it. There is an\ninterior fact. The tendency of the divisible product of machines to\nexceed the sum of effective desire is the last thing that industry\nwishes for. It is owing to a principle hitherto mentioned, namely, the\nprinciple that the cheapness of things is in proportion to the quantity\nproduced. Which now is to be explained.\n\nIt is the economic function of the machine to cheapen production. There\nis otherwise no point to it. But, if we say things are more cheaply\nmade by machine than by hand, we speak very loosely. What we mean is\nthat a quantity of things is more cheaply made by machine than by hand.\n\nFor example, the cost of a single yard of cloth produced by machine is\nhundreds of times greater than the cost of a single yard of it produced\nby hand. Obviously, the power-loom is a very costly piece of machinery\nto build, and so is the engine that drives it. If you produced on\na power-loom only the amount of cloth a weaver could make by hand,\nnobody could afford to buy it. But when you produce on the power-loom a\nquantity of cloth one hundred times greater than a weaver can make by\nhand, then, of course it is much cheaper. And the more you produce the\ncheaper it is. So with anything. The greater the quantity, the lower\nthe cost. Hence the terms quantity, or mass-production, meaning, first,\nto standardize the product, as to make it all black, all one texture,\nall one width or shape, and then to bring a chain of machine-power\ncontinuously to bear upon its multiple production.\n\nObserve the working of this principle. Take watches. At one time they\nwere made by hand, slowly, laboriously, in stances being not uncommon\nof a craftsman spending half his lifetime to make a very fine one.\nUnder these conditions watches are rare and costly. Only the very\nrich can buy them. Suddenly they began to be made by machines. A very\ngood watch can be made for fifty dollars. There are a million people\nwho want watches at that price. This is an original demand, a kind of\nvacuum, represented by a million people who have never had watches\nand now for the first time may possess them. Watches cannot be made\nfast enough to meet this want. The industry, for that reason, expands\nvery fast. Then all at once the demand is satisfied. The million have\nwatches. The vacuum has been filled. Hereafter the demand will tend\nto be static: it will increase slowly as the population increases or\nas people in general grow richer, little by little. The watch-making\nindustry, therefore, is depressed. It has to limit production. Now\ncomes someone with the idea that by carrying the machine method further\na watch can be made for ten dollars. There are twenty million people\nwho can afford to buy watches at that price. The ten-dollar watch\nappears. The demand again is like a vacuum, twenty times greater than\nthe first. For a while ten-dollar watches cannot be made fast enough.\nThe makers of fifty-dollar watches throw away their old machines,\ninstall new ones, increase their production, reduce their costs,\nand not only make what was a fifty dollar watch for twenty-five but\ncontribute also, in a competitive manner, to the supply of ten-dollar\nwatches. Suddenly what happened before happens again. The twenty\nmillion have watches. The vacuum is filled. Then someone says: \u201cBut\nthere are one hundred million who would buy watches at two dollars\u201d.\nSo the process is repeated, still lower in the pyramid. The two-dollar\nwatch is not a fine watch, but it will keep time; and as you would\nknow, with the improvement that has taken place in machine practice the\ncost of making any kind of watch, even the finest, has been greatly\nreduced. A watch ceases to be a luxury or a token of caste. It is a\nnecessary part of man\u2019s personal equipment, all the way down to the\nbase of the pyramid.\n\nThere you have the cycle. The use of the machine is to cheapen the\ncost of production. The sign is quantity. When the supply at a given\nprice has overtaken the effective demand you have either to idle your\nmachinery, in which case your cost of production will rise, or open a\nwider demand at a lower price. To lower the price and keep a profit you\nhave to cheapen the cost of production still more. This you can do only\nby increasing the quantity, which again overtakes the demand, creating\nagain the same necessity to cheapen the cost by increasing the quantity\nin order to be able to make a lower price for greater demand. Thus\nsupply pursues demand, downward through the social structure.\n\nThere is at last a base to the pyramid\u2014its very widest point. When that\nis reached\u2014what? Well, then you need bazaars in a foreign sun, heathen\nraces of your own to train up in the way of wanting the products of\nyour machines, new worlds of demand. You turn to foreign trade. And\nif you are an aggressive country that has come late to this business,\nas Germany was, and find that most of the promising heathen races are\nalready adopted and that all the best bazaar-sites are taken, you may\neasily work yourself into a panic of fear and become a menace to the\npeace.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nWHO MIND THEM OR STARVE\n\n\nWhat is it you will fear? That you will be unable to sell away the\nsurplus product of your machines? That industry will be unable to make\na profit?\n\nNo. The fear is that you will starve. Your machines have called into\nexistence millions of people who otherwise would not have been born\u2014at\nleast, not there in that manner. These millions who mind machines are\ngathered in cities. They produce no food. They produce with their\nmachines artificial things that are exchanged for food. It is usually\nthe case, too, that they have to buy the raw materials on which\ntheir machines act, as Great Britain buys raw cotton from the United\nStates and Egypt, and wool from Australia, to feed her great textile\nindustries; having manufactured this material, she sends it forth again\nas cloth, to be exchanged for wheat in Canada or beef in South America.\n\nAs you begin with machines your population divides. It becomes part\nrural and part industrial, and so long as the rural part of it\ncan feed the industrial part there is no trouble. But a time soon\ncomes when the need of the industrial workers for sustenance is\ngreater than the native production of food. This time inevitably\ncomes because the machines call up people so rapidly. Then you\nhave to look abroad for food. That means you have to go into other\ncountries\u2014peasant-countries\u2014where there is a surplus of meat and grain,\nand exchange there your manufactured goods for food. And you begin to\nthink and speak of your economic necessity.\n\nThere is no such necessity really. To assert it is to say a\npreposterous thing, namely, that when your industrial population has\nincreased beyond the native food-supply, to a point at which you are\nout of balance, you are obliged to import food so that your industrial\npopulation may continue to increase and your cities to grow and your\nnecessity to become greater and greater in an endless spiral.\n\nIt cannot be endless. One of two things will determine the sequel.\nEither presently the resources of those peasant-nations that produce a\nsurplus of food will be exhausted or they will in time think to become\nindustrial nations, too, and eat their own surplus. There is no lucid\nreason why a population should not disperse as it begins to exceed the\nnative food-supply\u2014that is to say, migrate to the sources of food.\n\nIn this new political dogma of an absolute economic necessity to\nimport food and raw materials in exchange for manufactures the ancient\nmyth-wish reappears. The machine does not abolish the curse of toil. It\nwas not the escape men sought. But it does create a preferred task.\n\nTraditionally, the peasant-task has been despised: it bore the curse\ndirect. And, when the machine made it possible for many to embrace\ninstead what was deemed the lesser affliction of industrial labour\ngregariously performed in cities, the impulse thereto was headlong.\n\nHence the rise of that angular phenomenon called the industrial\nnation\u2014a nation able to buy its food, therefore delivered from the fate\nof peasantry and for that reason entitled to consider itself of higher\ncaste than agricultural nations.\n\nHence the tumescent city as one of the most alarming appearances of\nour time.\n\nHence, also, that idea of economic necessity, which, getting control\nof the political mind of Europe, inevitably involved the world in a\nmachine-war. What made that war so terrifying, so destructive, so\nextensive, was the power of the machine\u2014an inconceivable power except\nas it disclosed itself from day to day. No one beholding the event from\na firmamental point of view could have supposed it was a war between\nraces of men. Man in contrast with the machines he served was pitifully\ninsignificant.\n\nIn Germany the task of bending the country\u2019s industrial equipment to\nthe uses of war was assigned to a man who possessed one of the very\nbrilliant Jewish minds in the world. In him were combined the three\nhigh characteristics of his race, which are loyalty, intellectual\nrealism, and dreaming imagination. His practical job was more complex\nthan that of the Chief of Staff. Yet his mind was not wholly occupied\nwith this care. His critical faculties and his imagination were always\nfree.\n\nReflecting on the economic meaning of the war, he was led to examine\nthe essential character of international trade, and so perceived\nclearly how wasteful, preposterous, and dangerous a great deal of it\nwas\u2014Germany pressing the surplus product of her machines for sale in\nGreat Britain, the British doing likewise in Germany, both competing\nat home and abroad with the industrial surplus of the United States,\nships passing on the seas with cargoes of similar goods endlessly\nduplicated, and all the machine-craft nations seeking peasant-nations\nto be exploited for food in exchange for manufactures. It was true in\nthis way the world had been growing richer in things, and yet the cost\nwas frightful. The resort to force was a confession that international\ntrade was bankrupt in reason and understanding.\n\nHe was competent to reach a conclusion standing himself at the head of\none of Europe\u2019s great industries. And he made a dream. It was that,\nwhen the war had come to an end and people were themselves again, they\nwould see the vital importance to civilization of dividing among them\nthe work of the world agreeably to their special aptitudes and the\nfacts of environment\u2014those to produce a surplus of whatever it was\nthey had a genius for making and the materials ready; these others\nanother kind of thing in which their skill and situation gave them an\nadvantage; and so on through the whole series of natural and artificial\nthings with which human wants are satisfied. Thus duplication and\nstrife would be eliminated. Not only would there be enough of\neverything: from the elimination of senseless waste in private and\npublic war there would be a saving of power and capital sufficient to\nwater all the deserts of the earth and recreate man\u2019s vistas here.\n\nAs a dream, it was most alluring. As a plan it was worthless, for it\ncontained two fatal assumptions, namely, that you could always find a\nSolomon to administer it and that people would submit to the benevolent\ntyranny of his wisdom. He himself was destined by his end to illustrate\nhow people really behave. Shortly after the close of the war he was\nmurdered in the name of fanatic nationalism.\n\nIt was a sign.\n\nThe war released a flood of repressed passions in nationalism.\nGreat and small groups of submerged people asserted rights of\nself-determination and clothed themselves with frontiers and\nnationhood. Nearly all of these, together also with old countries\nwhose character until then had been agricultural, were concurrently\nseized with the thought of economic independence\u2014that is to say, with\nthe thought of having machines and industries of their own, for they\nhad seen a new thing. Industrial nations and none other were powerful\nin the world. Nations without machines were helpless, subject, in fact,\nto those that had them.\n\nEnormously stimulated in its function of reproduction by the onset of\nthis human idea, the machine broke bounds. No one now has any control\nof it.\n\nOnly a few years ago Great Britain alone controlled it. She had a\nmonopoly of its power and use by right of having been the first to\ndevelop it, and she was for a while the only nation having a large\nsurplus of manufactures to sell in foreign countries. Then came\nGermany, France, and Belgium. Of these Germany was Great Britain\u2019s most\naggressive rival, making nearly all of the same things and most of them\ncheaper. After 1870 the United States developed industry very fast\nbut for twenty years more her exports were principally agricultural\nbecause she herself consumed the entire product of her machines,\nbesides importing manufactured goods from Europe in exchange for meat\nand grain and raw cotton. It was not until about 1890 that American\nmachine-products began to invade the markets of the world in a large\nway. And at about the same time Japan appeared as an industrial nation,\nhaving in a few years equipped herself with Western machines and\ntrained her imitative hand to mind them.\n\nSuch, roughly, was the economic state of the world at the outbreak of\nthe War. The powerfully industrialized nations were four in Europe,\ncounting little Belgium; one in the West; and one in the East\u2014six\naltogether, representing hardly more than one-fifth of the world\u2019s\ntotal population.\n\nIf we regard only the countries where the industrial population had so\noutrun the native food-supply that the sale of manufactures in foreign\nlands to pay for food had either become, or was believed to be, a vital\ntransaction, then we count out the United States. This country is still\nself-nourished. That leaves only five, and the competition among these\nfive for markets, for colonies, and heathen tribes to be instructed\nin wanting, for private pathways by land and sea to the sources of\nfood, for access to the raw materials required by their machines, was\nalready desperate and dangerous. Between two of them it was deadly.\n\nEven then it was so. Since then the machine has multiplied tremendously\nwhere its habitat was and has gone migrating, besides, all over the\nearth.\n\nIn those six countries that were already intensively industrialized\nwhat appears? Their machine equipment has greatly increased. During the\nWar it increased for obvious reasons. God was on the side of the most\nmachines. Since the War it has continued to increase for other reasons.\nOne reason was peculiar to Germany. There the building of furnaces,\nfactories, and machine-works by a dynastic method, as the pyramids were\nbuilt, without credit or gold, simply by command of the industrialists\nover labour and material, was a way of baffling the Allied creditors.\nAnother reason was peculiar to France. Restoring the industries of the\ndevastated regions meant building them a second time, since they had\nbeen already once reproduced elsewhere in France during the War. But\nthe reason over all lay in that fixed idea of economic necessity, not\nchanged in the least by anything that had happened, only now more\ndesperate than ever, owing both to the intensified competition of the\nolder countries among themselves and to the spread of the machine into\nother countries.\n\nHow the competition among themselves has been intensified may\nbe illustrated in the case of textiles as between Great Britain\nand France. Before the War both imported raw cotton and exported\nfabrications of cotton; but, whereas Great Britain exported principally\nthe cotton cloth of universal commerce, France exported special\nproducts representing her genius for style and artistry. Now, however,\nhaving made large additions to her general textile equipment, France\nfeels obliged to compete directly with Great Britain in cotton-cloth of\ncommon commerce. To do this she must extend her foreign trade parallel\nto Great Britain\u2019s and divide the markets hitherto dominated by the\nBritish. As with cotton-cloth, so with other manufactures, particularly\nthose of iron and steel, wherein France proposes to compete and is\nequipped to compete with both Germany and Great Britain as never\nbefore. Each step she takes in this direction augments her economic\nnecessity, for now almost the last thing you would expect to see in\nFrance is taking place. The native population as a whole is static, but\nits character is changing. The industrial part of it is growing; the\nagricultural part is waning. People are deserting the fields to embrace\nindustrial life\u2014to mind machines. In every city there is a housing\nproblem; public credit is employed to build small dwellings for the\nwage-earners; yet in the country, two hours from Paris, you will see\nhouses empty and going to ruin, whole rural villages in the way to be\nabandoned, vineyards perishing for want of care, fields going to grass\ninstead of grain. Their industrial power is rising; their agricultural\npower is falling. Before the War they were, or might have been,\nself-nourishing on their own soil like the people of the United States.\nThat precious security they cast away. In place of it they take on the\nanxieties of empire. They must impose upon Morocco the blessings of\nEuropean civilization in order to have an outlet there for the surplus\nof their machines.\n\nDramatic are the migrations of the machine and not unlike the\nmigrations of natural species, men and beasts, in search of food.\nThe machine seeks either cheaper raw material or people to mind its\nprocesses.\n\nThere is Italy, with a population greater than that of France, growing\nhalf-a-million a year. It is the most fecund race in Europe. Suddenly\nthe Italians wake up and are resolved upon an industrial career.\nBefore the War this thought was dim among them. In the crisis it took\nshape. Since the War it has become an enthusiasm, and now smoke-towers\nare rising very fast. Definitely they have turned their minds from\nagriculture to industry, not merely in order that they may become\nself-supplied with manufactures instead of buying them from other\ncountries with lemons and olive oil, but in order to grow rich and\npowerful in foreign trade. They propose hereafter and progressively to\nexchange machine-wares for food. Italy will be a formidable rival for\nGreat Britain, Germany, France, and Belgium, who are already beginning\nto feel it.\n\nPoland perceives her destiny to be industrial: she has already a large\nsurplus of manufactured goods to sell. Likewise Czechoslovakia.\nThese are instances of new countries. Spain and Greece are importing\nmachinery, and Spain is so anxious to develop industry that she\nconsiders paying a bounty out of the public treasury on exports of\ntextiles. India, whose historic economic function had been to send\nraw cotton to Great Britain and buy cotton cloth from Manchester,\nnow consumes half her own raw cotton in her native mills; she not\nonly satisfies three-quarters of her own want for cotton cloth but\nis beginning actually to export that commodity, even to the United\nStates. This will seem very wasteful, indeed, when you pause to set\nit against the historical background of the United States. For a long\ntime we exported raw cotton and imported cotton cloth. That was to have\nbeen the pattern of our economic life as a British colony; we were to\nproduce only raw materials, ship them to Great Britain and buy from\nher the surplus of her machines. We were forbidden, in fact, to weave\ncloth for sale or to have iron mills. Now we are an industrial nation;\nwe consume more and more of our own raw cotton and export enormous\nquantities of cotton cloth. Ultimately we shall have no raw cotton at\nall to sell; our mills will require the whole of our annual crop; we\nshall have nothing but cotton cloth to sell. To whom shall we sell it?\nNot to the Indians; they wish to make their own. Probably not to the\nEgyptians. The Japanese manufacturers of cotton goods have recently\ninvaded the Egyptian market that was formerly Great Britain\u2019s own, and\nare underselling the British there. You would think China would be\nJapan\u2019s natural outlet for cotton goods. So it is. The difficulty is\nthat Japan must be looking further because China is beginning to supply\nherself.\n\nThe Chinese instance is poignant. A few years ago\u2014until the War, in\nfact\u2014China exported food and raw materials and imported manufactured\ngoods\u2014nothing else to speak of either way. This was as the Western\nindustrial nations wished it to be. So anxious were they to have it\nso that they bound China by treaty not to put tariff barriers against\nthe goods they wished to sell in the Chinese markets, except by mutual\nconsent\u2014that is to say, with their consent.\n\nThe War suspended this thraldom. The Chinese imported machines and\nbegan to make their own things, especially cloth. Power-looms appeared\nas by magic. And after the War, they continued to appear. During\nthree years after the War the number trebled, and in 1922, the table\nof Chinese imports and exports presented a strange face. Among her\nimports were machines and machine-parts; also semimanufactured goods to\nbe finished in Chinese factories. And one-fifth of her total exports\nconsisted of manufactured goods. China an exporter of machine products!\n\nAnd so up and down the earth. In Brazil, where there was hardly any\nvisible production of artificial things before 1914, the whole outlook\nhas changed. That country is now able from her own machines to meet\nthe whole of her want for matches, textiles, footgear, wallpaper,\nphonograph-discs, hardware, hats, and playing cards, and will soon be\nself-supplied with practically everything she needs.\n\nThe Colonial System that was to have answered forever Great Britain\u2019s\nneed for raw materials and food in exchange for machine-products will\nnot hold in that character. In India the revolt is political; elsewhere\nit is peaceably economic. Canada is already powerfully machined; she\nis exporting motor-cars. Australia, going in the same direction,\nis beginning to export shoes. The Union of South Africa takes steps\nto subsidize local industry. Ireland no sooner gains control of her\neconomic life than she puts a tariff-wall around herself to limit the\nsale of foreign goods, meaning British goods as well, thinking thereby\nto foster infant industries.\n\nWell, everyone now is doing that. The old industrial countries, too,\nare protecting themselves against one another\u2019s goods, the last to\ncome to it being Great Britain herself. For more than half-a-century\nshe was the protagonist of free trade, abhoring tariffs, because she\nwas paramount in machine-craft and could beat her rivals both in their\nown markets and in her own. That advantage having departed from her,\nshe is driven to tariff-protection: she puts up barriers against other\npeople\u2019s goods if they are too cheap, because they are too cheap, and\ncalls it Safeguarding Home Industries.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE PARADOX OF SURPLUS\n\n\nWhat does it mean? Can there be too many desirable and useful things?\nCan things be too cheap? You would say No. Surely, so long as any human\nwant remains unsatisfied, things cannot be either too plentiful or too\ncheap? But there is another dimension.\n\nEverything that is not still or dead must exist in a state of rhythmic\ntension. It is true of the plant, it is true of the animal, it is true\nof each race of plants and each race of animals, it is true of the\nkingdom of plants against the kingdom of animals. It is true of people,\nas individuals, as races, as a species. And it is true, also, of the\nmachine.\n\nIn the living organism growth of tissue at a normal rate consonant\nwith the rhythm is vital. A wild growth of that same tissue will be\nfatal. In the aggregate of life there is equilibrium among millions\nof different forms, each form striving but never succeeding and is\npossessing every other form and taking the world. The oyster, if\nunhindered, would displace every other living thing on the earth in\nmaybe ten generations, and then, of course, perish for want of space in\nwhich to contain itself. What hinders the oyster and at the same time\npreserves it is that principle of tension in nature, without which it\nwould be impossible for innumerable forms and varieties of life, the\nrelations of which to one another are reciprocal, neutral, hostile,\nanonymous, to exist together all in one great taut pattern.\n\nNow regard the third kingdom, artificial, implanted with mechanical\nbeasts, that contains civilization. Life in this environment is\neconomic. Its characteristic behaviour is a progressive differentiation\nof labour. Tasks are divided and subdivided until, at length, there are\ncountless separate groups of people, each one performing a singular\nfunction to which it is trained and tending to become unable to perform\nany other. The subdivisions are beyond enumeration. They multiply so\nfast that the book of the census cannot keep up with them.\n\nThe shoe-industry, for example, does not consist in shoemakers. You\nmight search it in vain for a shoemaker\u2014that is, one who should know\nhow to raise a pair of shoes from flat leather. In the shoe factory the\nmaterial passes through a train of machines. Each machine is minded by\nan operative who performs one little specialized part of the work in\nendless repetition. The product is shoes by thousands of gross.\n\nBut who determines what kinds of shoe and how many shoes shall be made?\nWhat becomes of them when they are made? Who knows they can be sold?\nWhat if they are not saleable?\n\nIf you address these questions to one of the operatives minding a\nmachine you will find him dumb. He knows only his own function.\n\nIt is very complicated. There are two industries here. One is the\nshoe-industry; the other is the shoe-machine industry. One could not\nexist without the other, yet they are separate and very unlike. The\nshoe-industry itself, that has dispensed with shoemakers, will have\na finance department, an economic department, a buying department, a\ndepartment of production science, a style and designing department, a\nchemical department, a department of distribution, a sales department,\nan advertizing department, and others we do not think of. It is all\nabout shoes. These are all shoe people. They agglomerate in shoe towns.\nThey think shoes. The world is a foot. The more it can be shod the\nbetter. They live by shoes.\n\nBut to do this they must be able to exchange shoes for the things\nthey want. Shoes, therefore, must have a relation of value to every\nother thing in the economic world. It follows that, in order to have\nthis exchange-value, shoes must have also a relation of quantity to\nall other things. If for any reason the production of shoes becomes\nsuddenly abnormal that exchange-value is lost. It is like one kind\nof tissue growing wild in the organism. Shoes are necessary; but an\nexcessive quantity cannot be absorbed by the economic body. There will\nbe in that case a morbid pathology in the shoe-industry, unemployment\nin the shoe town, despair among the shoe people, many of whom have\nnever learned to do anything else. Left to themselves, without shoes to\nmake, they might even starve.\n\nIt may be in the same way a soap town, a textile town, a garment town,\nan iron town, a motor town like Detroit, a rubber-tire town like Akron,\na furniture town like Grand Rapids. It may be all of these\u2014that is to\nsay, industry as a whole, increasing its output at an abnormal rate. As\nyou project the thought you begin to see, first, the vital importance\nof rhythm, equilibrium, tension, in the realm of industry, and then the\ninverse meaning of a sudden competitive increase in the machine-power\nof the world.\n\nAsk the Italians what it means. They are an old people coming to\nit with a fresh mind. The conversation that follows took place in\nFebruary, 1925. Talking are, on one side, the Italian Minister of\nFinance, and on the other, a visiting journalist:\n\n\u201cThe industrial idea is new in Italy. It is since the War. You had a\nclean slate. You could have done anything you had the imagination to\ndo. First you might have made a scientific survey of Italy\u2019s latent\ngenius and resources, and then you might have thought of producing\ngoods that should be uniquely Italian and therefore non-competitive.\nBut what have you done? You have gone in for the great staples of\nworld commerce, such as cotton and woollen textiles, artificial silk,\nand motor-cars. Don\u2019t you see that in doing this you take on the\ncompetition of Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, the United\nStates?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, we see that.\u201d\n\n\u201cThose countries have the field and the experience and better access\nthan Italy to sources of raw material.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat we know, also.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen how can you hope successfully to compete with them? What have you\nthat they have not? What advantage against theirs?\u201d\n\n\u201cOne you haven\u2019t thought of.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is it?\u201d\n\n\u201cA man can live on less in Italy than anywhere else. We don\u2019t know why\nthat is. It may be the way the sun shines on him. But it is a fact.\nThat is our advantage. With that we shall succeed.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you realize what that means? You are saying that Italy proposes to\nfound an industrial career on the lowest terms of human existence. Your\npeople will not accept it.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut they will.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow do you know they will?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause they will do anything sooner than starve.\u201d\n\nWhat a finish for the morning hope of the machine-age!\u2014if it were.\nMonotonous tending of the machine on the lowest standard of living;\nalternative, starvation.\n\nSuppose it were true. Suppose the Italian people did accept the terms\nand acquired the knack and skill. Then Italian manufactures, being\ncheaper than any other, would sweep the markets of the world. The older\nindustrial nations\u2014Great Britain, Germany, France, the United States,\n_et al._\u2014could protect their domestic markets by tariff-barriers,\nbut they would find themselves losing their foreign markets to the\nItalians. For such industrial countries as are obliged to exchange a\nmachine-surplus abroad for food the loss of foreign markets would be\nfatal. They would have to meet the Italian competition. They would\nhave to say, as the Italians now are saying: \u201cIt is that or starve.\u201d\nThey would have to let down the standard of living to meet Italy\u2019s\nwage-cost. This would oblige Italy to make her standard lower still,\nand thus, in a cycle, until all of them were sunk in misery.\n\nAnd this is by no means an impossible progression of events. It has\nonce taken place on a lesser scale. Beginning about 1870, there was\na sudden and uncontrollable increase in the output of industry from\ntwo principal causes. One was the rapid rise of competitive industry\nin Germany and the United States; the other\u2014much more potent\u2014was the\ndiscovery of a new and cheaper way of making steel. This one discovery\ntransformed the aspect of industry by increasing its potential power as\nmuch, perhaps, as one-hundred fold. Until then people spoke of the iron\nage; after that it was the steel age. For a quarter of a century prices\nfell continuously, while solemn economic bodies sat pondering the\nphenomenon. In that time all the capital employed in industry was lost\nat least once, probably twice or three times. The producer\u2019s only hope\nwas to improve his machines and increase production, for as he did that\nhis cost per unit fell and for a little while he could undersell his\ncompetitor. In methods of production and in the efficiency of machines\nthere was necessarily amazing progress; nevertheless, when all other\nmeans of reducing costs had failed, it had to be taken out of labour.\nIn the United States it was not so bad because here the domestic\ndemand for manufactures was unlimited, and a tariff-wall protected\nindustry from foreign competition. In Germany it was very bad.\n\nGermany then was where Italy now is. Her advantage was that the\nGerman people would work harder and longer for less money than the\nBritish. The competition was between these two. The British Government,\ndisturbed by her new rival\u2019s success in foreign trade, made a study of\nlabour conditions in Germany. It found Sunday labour very prevalent in\nthe factories. \u201cOnly the hours of divine service are excluded\u201d, said a\nreport from Saxony.\n\nCommenting, _The_ (London) _Economist_ said: \u201cThe question of Sunday\nlabour is one of considerable interest for England, for it is\nunquestionable that among the causes of Germany\u2019s ability to compete\nwith England as a mercantile and industrial country the fact that here\nmore hours are worked for less money is not the least important. The\nprohibition of Sunday labour would, of course, mean increased cost of\nproduction, and every increase in the cost of production will render it\nmore difficult for Germany to outrival older manufacturing countries\nin the markets of the world.\u201d\n\nWhat might have happened does not detain us. What did happen was very\nfortunate.\n\nFirst, the food-supply from free virgin land in North and South\nAmerica increased at the same time in a prodigious manner, so that,\nnotwithstanding the wild energy of the machine, the equilibrium between\nagriculture and industry was fairly well maintained.\n\nSecond, there was still room in the world for colonial development on\na vast scale. This occurred, and the outlets thereby created for the\nsurplus product of machines were most timely.\n\nThird\u2014and this is very important\u2014finance, to save itself from deluge,\ngot control of industry. It was unable to buy industry out. All the\nbanks in the world had not money enough to do that. This apparently\ninsuperable difficulty it solved in a simple manner. It formed industry\nby groups into great joint-stock corporations and sold the stock to\nthe public. And, although generally finance did not keep control\nin a literal sense, it did so centre it as to make the management\nresponsive thereafter to financial counsel. The classic instance in the\nUnited States was the formation of the Steel Trust, which was in very\nearnest a measure of desperation. The steel-making machine had become a\ndemon whose pastime was panic. By this feat of finance, which occurred\nin all industrial countries, a new rhythm was established. It was most\nimperfect: absolute control of production was impossible. But panics\nfrom overproduction were thereafter episodic, not continuous, and this\nwas a great improvement.\n\nAnd now a second time the machine has got away. But how much more\npowerful it is and widely planted than before. The industrial capacity\nof the United States alone is greater than that of all Europe\ntwenty-five years ago. There are no more such virgin continents as\nNorth and South America to be exploited for food; and, besides,\ncountries that were then content to play an agricultural part,\nexchanging meat and grain and raw materials for machine-made wares,\nnow are resolved to have industries of their own\u2014nay! more, to have an\nindustrial surplus for sale abroad, engaging in that game themselves.\nColonies are no longer docile. And as to finance, there is little\nprobability that it will be able again to lay its hand upon the\nthrottle. There are several reasons why.\n\nThe significance of industry has changed. Formerly it was a private\naffair in which the State was but dimly concerned, and so concerned\nonly in a social sense, whereas now the idea of industry is basically\npolitical. It associates with thoughts of security independence in\nall circumstances, national welfare, power, and grandeur. A factory\nis like a ship to be privately enjoyed in time of peace, subject to\nmobilization for war. The War did that. Great Britain now subsidizes\nso-called key-industries as before she subsidized ships under the eye\nof the Admiralty if they were so built as to be easily converted into\ncruisers. All this is beyond the control of finance.\n\nFor another reason, there are signs that industry in the future is more\nlikely to command finance than finance is to dominate industry.\n\nBy finance it shall be understood that we mean organized influence\u2014in\nshort, banking. Its occult authority has been seriously impaired. The\nhigh day of its priestcraft is gone.\n\nFormerly it was consulted in war. You could not manage a war without a\ngold-chest: it was the banker who said whether that could be filled or\nnot. Now one of the first steps you take in case of war is to suspend\nthe bank, declare a moratorium, and print paper money to pass from hand\nto hand.\n\nWhen the World-War started it was the opinion of finance that it could\nnot last above ninety days: it could not be financed beyond that limit.\nIt lasted four years and did not stop then for want of money.\n\nAfter the War international finance was morally powerless to prevent\nthe colossal mark swindle, Germany printing and selling all over the\nearth billions of paper marks that were to be flatly repudiated. Nor\nwas it able to visit the slightest penalty upon the authors of this\nfinancial enormity, for immediately afterwards it was obliged, on\npolitical grounds, to float a large gold loan for Germany and thereby\nrestore her to solvency and credit. In Germany finance was unable\nto prevent the industrial dynasts from appropriating to themselves\nall the middle-class wealth that was invested in bonds, mortgages,\nannuities, and savings banks: they simply borrowed it and then paid it\nback in worthless paper money.\n\nIt is very significant this humiliation of finance. In situations where\nthe political will is dominant and in those where economic forces act\nalone the omens are the same. Henry Ford is the extraordinary instance\nof an industrialist who proceeds without benefit of finance. He creates\nhis capital as he goes along; what he does not create he commands. He\ndoes not borrow.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nIN PERIL OF TRADE\n\n\nSo now what will happen? From the excessive power already existing\nto produce industrial commodities, from the continued increase of\nthat power nevertheless for political and national reasons, from the\nraising of trade-barriers by one nation against another because every\none fears the effect upon its own industries of receiving cheap goods\nfrom another, from this running of people out of the fields to tend\nmore machines, from the amazing growth of urban tissue in the economic\nbody\u2014from all of this what follows?\n\nThe Italians suggest a bitter competition in terms of living, those\nto survive who will accept most patiently and at the lowest wage the\ndrudgery of minding machines. That might go rather far; ultimately it\ncomes to absurdity. To whom at last should they sell their goods? Not\nto the impoverished workers of other industrial countries, defeated\nin the struggle. To whom else? To the agricultural countries? But\nthese, for the reasons we have seen, are tending as such to disappear.\nThey are buying machines. Italy brings nothing to the solution. She is\nmerely coming tardily to do what others have done to excess.\n\nA brilliant Belgian economist suggests that only the most efficient\nequipment will survive, and only enough of that to satisfy the natural\ndemand for goods. All the rest must be abandoned because there will\nbe no profit in working it. Well, it remains to be seen if people\nwill abandon their machines without a struggle, purely for rational\nreasons. Much more is it likely that the higher cost of working the\nless efficient equipment will be compensated by a lower wage-rate,\nunemployment being the workers\u2019 alternative. Moreover, if all the\ninefficient and unnecessary machines were scrapped that would mean only\npostponement of the sequel. The competition would begin all over again.\n\nThere are those who suggest that we are facing toward the mercantile\nsystem of the Middle Ages, when it was the custom for each nation\njealously to protect its home-market from the competitive handicrafts\nof other nations, and to prohibit or punitively tax the exportation\nof raw material to rival countries. So we are. To say it is merely to\nindicate the rock upon which, if nothing happens, the ship of trade is\nbound to wreck herself.\n\nA growing light on the actions of trade as it is organized by the\nindustrial powers now impels nations hitherto agricultural to found\nindustries of their own. As producers of foodstuffs and raw materials\nto be exchanged for machine-products they came to have a sense of\nbeing exploited. In academic theory this was an exchange by which the\nindustrial nation satisfied its food wants and the agricultural nation\nits industrial wants, to mutual advantage. But how came the industrial\nnation also to acquire wealth by the transaction? Performing the\npreferred industrial task, it got not only its food but a profit over.\nWhat else could it mean but that after a series of years the industrial\nnation should come to have large interest-bearing investments in the\nagricultural country, owning its railroads, tramways, water works, and\nbanks? What else could it mean but that the richest country in foreign\ninvestments was the one that had been for the longest time engaged in\nexchanging the surplus product of its machines for the food and raw\nmaterials of other countries? How was it that those other countries,\nafter having served her for many years with food and raw materials,\ninvariably owed her a great deal of money? Or, if you approach it\nfrom the other point of view, you find in the economic literature of\nindustrial nations a certain finished doctrine, which is that the\nexchange of manufactured goods for food and raw materials is a business\nthat pays. It is not primarily a vital transaction. It becomes vital\nby extension\u2014that is to say, when in the course of time the industrial\npopulation has increased beyond the native food supply. But in the\nbeginning the motive is gain. Nakedly, it is an exchange of skilled\nlabour for unskilled labour, to the enrichment of the former; it is a\ndivision of labour among nations on a kind of caste plan.\n\nThere is much to be said for it. In no other way could civilization\nhave been spread so fast; by no other method could the world have\nbecome so rich in a few years. There was much to be said, also, for\npiracy. It diffused, manners, customs, and wealth; it made peoples\nacquainted with one another; it made a flat world round and laid the\nfoundations of modern commerce. In the modern case all difficulty\nbegins when the peoples to whom the less profitable tasks have been\nallotted become intelligently dissatisfied and resolve to change their\nstatus, as the American colonists did, as the Japanese did, as now all\nlusty nations are doing, last of all the Chinese.\n\nModern trade evolved from piracy. There was a time when all transfer of\ngoods between nations was by joyous might. It is pleasant to believe\nthat the cause of the decline of piracy was a rise in the moral sense\nof mankind. It is more likely to have been the other way\u2014that as piracy\ndeclined for rational reasons rules to govern commercial conduct became\nnecessary. To enforce the rules became everyone\u2019s duty. To break them\nwas punishable. From this would germinate a moral sense. Piracy was\nbound to fail. On a large scale, continuous and competitive, it simply\nwas not feasible. Competition ruined it.\n\nThere was a marginal time in which one was either pirate or trader,\nagreeably to circumstance. The early Greek in his dangerous ship never\nknew which he was; nor did anyone else. He took when the taking was\ngood; when it was not, he bartered. The Romans finally abolished piracy\nin the Mediterranean, but on the high seas it was the great romantic\nenterprize down to a very recent time. Some of its heroes are venerated\nas daring navigators, pathbreakers of empire. It takes some effort to\nremember that trees are still standing that were already old when the\nworld was a place where finding was keeping. If what you found was in\nthe possession of savages or heathens, you exchanged for it the hope of\ncivilization, maybe a few glass beads. Toward the end, this wonderful\nbusiness began to be hedged about with restrictions. You had to be\ncareful not to take anything forcibly from people who had treaties of\namity with your own country, for if you did they made trouble for you\nat home, diplomatically, and you might even be hanged at the end of an\notherwise glorious voyage.\n\nBut if you swindled them in trade, that was all right. Naturally, the\nfirst theory of trade was to give the least and get the most. There\nwas else no point to it.\n\nThe significance of trade has fundamentally changed in our time. What\nwas a private adventure has become a national necessity, vital to the\nexisting form of the principal industrial states of the world. And yet\nthat first rude theory of it, representing the step from piracy to\ncommerce, universally survives. This, at last, is the crucial fact.\n\nIt has been impossible to part with the notion that there must be gain\nin trade\u2014a profit on one side beyond the mutual satisfaction of unlike\nwants with unlike goods. Hence the term, balance of trade, meaning\nthe balance in your favour, or against you, from the transactions of\ncommerce. The rule is that the industrial nations come out each year\nwith a balance in their favour. The countries with whom they have been\nexchanging machine-made goods for food and raw materials owe them\nmoney. This simply means that the industrial nations charge more for\nwhat they sell than they pay for what they buy. Hence the gain. That is\nhow they get rich. It is more than a rule: it is the very principle of\ntrade; and if you say there is any other principle the commercial mind\nbecomes instantly stark. What would activate trade if not the hope of\ngain?\n\nNevertheless, trade on that principle is bound to fail, as piracy\nfailed, and for the same practical reason. On a vast scale, with\nunlimited participation, it is not continuously feasible. Every nation\ncannot have a favourable trade-balance. So long as three or four\nnations had a monopoly of machines and machine-craft, it could be\nmanaged; it could even assume such colossal proportions as to create\nthe illusion of being permanent as the way of the world. That monopoly\nis broken. The machine is increasingly a common possession. Its power\nis dispersed, and there is much new and unbidden ecstasy in the\nexercise of it. And whereas it was that a few nations exploited many,\nwhat now opens to view is the prospect of all nations simultaneously\nengaged in the effort to exploit one another. Every frontier a trade\nwall. Each nation forbidding others to do unto it that which it is\nbent upon doing to them. So we return to the middle of the sixteenth\ncentury, no wiser than the British were when the Parliament voted _An\nAct Avoiding Divers Foreign Wares Made by Handicraftsmen Beyond the\nSeas_ (_5 Eliz. c. 7, Statutes of the Realm, Vol. IV, Part I, pp.\n428-429), 1562_. It reads:\n\n Whereas heretofore the artificers of this realm of England (as well\n within the city of London as within other cities, towns, and boroughs\n of the same real) that is to wit, girdlers, cutlers, saddlers,\n glovers, point-makers, and such like handicraftsmen, have been in the\n said faculties greatly wrought, and greatly set on work, as well for\n the sustentation of themselves, their wives, and families, as for a\n good education of a great part of the youth of this realm in good art\n and laudible exercise:\n\n Yet notwithstanding so now it is, that by reason of the abundance of\n foreign wares brought into this realm from the parts of beyond the\n seas, the said artificers are not only less occupied, and thereby\n utterly impoverished, the youth not trained in the said sciences and\n exercises, and thereby the said faculties and the exquisite knowledges\n thereof like in short time within this realm to decay; but also divers\n cities and towns within this realm of England much thereby impaired,\n the whole realm greatly endamaged and other countries greatly enriched.\n\n For reformation whereof, be it enacted by our sovereign lady the\n Queen\u2019s Highness, and by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the\n Commons of this present parliament assembled and by the authority of\n the same, that no person or persons whatsoever, from or after the\n feast of the Nativity of St John Baptist now next ensuing, shall bring\n or cause to be brought into this realm of England from the parts of\n beyond the seas, any girdles, harness for girdles, rapiers, daggers,\n knives, hilts, pummels, lockets, chapes, dagger-blades, handles,\n scabbards, and sheaths for knives, saddles, horseharness, stirrups,\n bits, gloves, points, leather laces, or pins, being ready made or\n wrought in any parts of beyond the seas, to be sold, bartered, or\n exchanged within this realm of England or Wales; upon pain to forfeit\n all such wares so to be brought contrary to the true meaning of this\n act, in whose hands soever they or any of them shall be found, on the\n very value thereof.\n\nShall it be either this again, or from a universal war of\nmachine-competition the survival of one titanic industrial nation\nwith a monopoly of foreign trade and the might to force its surplus\ngoods on other people\u2019s markets? That nation would fall in time and\nnot altogether from its own weight. It would, of course, abuse its\npower; but, moreover, it would be unable to collect its favourable\ntrade-balances from all the rest of the world.\n\nLogical extremes are fictions of thought. It is always another thing\nthat happens. The one impossibility is for trade to wear in its present\ncharacter. It has come to the end of its theory, witness the dread with\nwhich European statesmen, economists, and industrialists regard the\npayment of German reparations. How shall Germany pay? In goods. There\nis no other way. She cannot pay in gold. There is not that much gold\nin the whole world. The Allied creditors actually lend her a little\ngold in order that she may recover from her amazing act of bankruptcy\nand get back to the way of producing exportable wealth. But to whom\nshall she deliver her goods, or sell them? Great Britain does not want\nthem. Her anxiety is how to keep her own factories going. They make\nthe same goods. France does not wish them, nor Belgium, nor Italy, nor\nthe United States, and all for the same reason. They have a potential\nsurplus of industrial commodities from their own machines. Then shall\nGermany sell her goods in other markets and turn the money proceeds\nover to Great Britain, France, _et al_? But they themselves need those\nother markets on which to sell their own industrial products. German\ncompetition is not wanted there. Thus an _impasse_.\n\nIf, in desperation, the Allied creditors forgave Germany her reparation\ndebt, or so much of it as she should be obliged to pay in competitive\ngoods, that would be still worse. For Germany would then compete in\nthose other markets on her own initiative and keep the profit. And all\nthe time those other markets, in Asia, Africa, South America, tend to\nbecome less and less exploitable because they belong to people who\nhave begun to found industries of their own and are in the way to be\nnatively supplied with manufactures.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nDIM VISTAS NEW\n\n\nIt must occur to you that what the world requires to find is a new\nconception of commerce among nations\u2014one that shall be free of the\npredatory impulse, above the exploiting motive, competitive in some\nnobler sense. It need not be magnanimous or unselfish\u2014not yet; but only\nenlightened enough to comprehend the latter meaning of events.\n\nFor a superseding principle the perfect pattern is represented in\nnature, where you see dissimilar organisms existing together in a state\nof symbiosis, one sustaining the other, vitally interdependent, yet\nneither exploiting the other.\n\nThere is no accrual of advantage to one side, no gain, no favourable\nbalance of trade. One gives exactly as much as it receives and two\nwants are equally satisfied, with nothing to boot either way.\n\nThis is very different from parasitism, which is one-sided, for gain\nonly. And there is a very curious suggestion that organisms now\nexisting together in a state of permanent symbiotic union were once\nparasitic and learned better.\n\nIt cannot be supposed that nations will ever deliberately substitute a\nprinciple of mutualism for the principle of gain in trade. They could\nnot if they would. Those that have the advantage must fight for it to\nthe end. Commerce itself, if you look to it, is a complex structure\nof growth for which there is nowhere any original accountability. It\ncannot change its philosophy, any more than a tree, for it has none. It\nhas instead a vital instinct for opportunity and a flexible way with\nnecessity and circumstance. There is no hope of its being reformed\nideally by mass intelligence. The conglomerate mind is irresponsibly,\nimpersonally selfish; it cannot act without experience. There is no\nexperience of peoples sustaining one another on a sympathetic plan,\neach willing to give as much as it takes, with no balance favourable or\nunfavourable to be settled in gold or debt. This has never happened.\nIt is an idea only.\n\nBut if now we move our point of view from the centre to the\ncircumference, we shall see already taking place, with the force\nof natural events, momentous alterations in the scheme of economic\nlife\u2014one of decay and one of revaluation.\n\nWe witness almost unawares the ruin of that classic enterprise of\nempire which is founded upon the theory of a balance of trade and a\ndivision of labour whereby the colonies, the dominions, the subject and\nmandated peoples are hewers, drawers, and food-bringers, serving those\nwho live in cities, practise machine-craft, and think themselves wholly\nbenevolent.\n\nThe machine has betrayed it. Nothing more unexpected has occurred\nsince the discovery of a simple chemical reaction that was to destroy\nthe privileged warrior-caste among mankind. When a splendid knight in\narmour was powerless against the peasant with a musket and a knight\nwith a musket no better than a peasant, the romantic profession of arms\nwas doomed. Gunpowder ended the age of chivalry. Ultimate military\npower passed to the people.\n\nAnd now for hundreds of millions of people hitherto inferior in\nstatus the machine is a symbol of liberation, freedom, independence,\nrecognition, racial power. Japan is the thrilling example in Asia. Did\nit not deliver her from a thraldom imposed by the Western Powers in\nthe interest of their own trade? Did it not make her in one generation\ntheir equal, a nation to be feared? Certainly for these reasons use and\npossession of the machine will increase in the world beyond any natural\neconomic ratio, and both the power and profit of empire will cease.\n\nThe other alteration, already beginning to be visible though not yet\nadequately understood, is a change in the value of food. Three causes\nhenceforth will be operating together to make food dear. First, as\ncities continue to grow and the industrial population of the earth\ncontinues to augment faster than the agricultural population, the need\nto import food will be always greater; second, the exportable surplus\nof food will be always less because as the agricultural and low-craft\nnations progress toward their ideal of industrial independence they\nwill consume more and more of their own food products; and third, the\nsupply of those industrial commodities that are exchanged for food will\nenormously increase.\n\nIn the language of the economist, the agricultural index will rise and\nthe industrial index will fall. It will require a greater quantity of\nmanufactures to buy a bushel of wheat; fewer bushels of wheat to buy\na manufactured article. This will not be for one year or two. It will\nbe lasting. It will affect the status of great groups and classes of\npeople. In the cities and industrial centres the cost of living will\nmove in a vertical manner.\n\nThe difficulties of food-importing countries may, almost certainly\nwill, become desperate. The people of Great Britain, for example,\nwill pay dearly for the wealth they have amassed by industry in the\nlast seventy-five years. If the value of food, priced in British\nmachine-wares, should double, then for the same quantity of food as\nbefore they would have to give twice the quantity of manufactured\ngoods, which would mean twice as much labour and no more to eat. The\nsame difficulties will beset all countries not self-contained in food.\nThey will exhort their people to return to the fields, which the people\nwill be loth to do, having tasted cities. They will expect their\ngovernments to make food cheaper by edict, or to buy it out of taxation\nand distribute it gratis. Moreover, in some countries, taking again the\ncase of Great Britain as notable, there may not be enough land. The\npeople perhaps could not feed themselves no matter how intensively they\nworked their fields, industry having multiplied the population beyond\nthe utmost potentiality of a native food supply. Obviously indicated is\na movement of dispersal together with a limitation upon the increase\nof industrial population. More power will pass to countries, like the\nUnited States, Canada, Brazil, and Australia, that have the advantage\nof enormous food-reserves. Their problems will be internal.\n\nNone of this can happen without much blind and violent resistance.\nBut, of course, it will not happen all at once, not all in one place,\nnor in every case with a clear meaning. And it is not certain that any\namount of experience, however painful, will bring nations to adopt what\nwe have called a symbiotic principle of commerce with one another.\nThere is at first the danger that agriculture in its turn will exploit\nindustry as industry has exploited peasantry and that those who possess\nor control resources of food and raw materials will hold them too dear,\nthereby taking the industrial nations into their debt or provoking them\nto insane measures.\n\nThus the opportunity to go forward might be lost in passion. The fate\nof retrogression is possible. This has happened many times. It is much\nless probable than ever before, however, for many reasons that seem\npermanent. When knowledge was a precious torch borne aloft by a few\nhands through storm and stress, it was easily quenched. Then darkness.\nYou can hardly imagine destruction of the existing body of science,\ntechnology, and fact-knowledge. The mass of it is too great to be lost.\n\nThat, of course, has nothing to do with wisdom. By knowledge alone man\nmight extinguish himself utterly. But to suppose that he will not find\na new way to go on with, that he will either move the old struggle to\nnew ground or return to medievalism, is to believe there is no law of\nhuman progress.\n\nThe probability is that he will find the way unknowingly, by groping,\nand will be well upon it before he has had time to formulate any clear\nidea or theory of what he is doing. He will have found little by little\nthat it pays, better than any other way, not as he once understood\nprofit, but in terms of enduring satisfactions, which may include\npeace. Critical understanding of it will come later with reflection,\nand as it comes he will rid his mind of the phantasy in pursuit of\nwhich he has made the world so much richer in things than in happiness.\n\nSeeing now only how relentlessly the curse pursued him still and how\nthe affliction of monotonous toil if it be lifted in one place is made\nheavier in another, he is torn with a sense of frustration. But the\nview is wrong\u2014false to his first nature. He forgets the truth of his\nown myth. Somewhere down the ages it got turned upside down. Once he\ndwelt in the Garden of Eden, or supposed he did, and cared not for it.\nHe was bored there and beguiled to his fall. The figure at the gate\nforbidding his return is a symbol of self-knowledge; it was set there\nby his own forethought, lest he should be tempted to go back.\n\nIf the machine with which he has believed himself to be storming a\nchildish wish ever brought him to a state of effortless ease on earth,\nthat would be his last.\n\nIt may be a power he is yet morally unprepared to exercise. How strange\nat least that with an incentive so trivial and na\u00efve in itself he\nshould have been able to perform an absolute feat of creation!\n\nThe machine was not. He reached his mind into emptiness and seized it.\nEven yet he cannot realize what he has done. Out of the free elemental\nstuff of the universe, visible and invisible, some of it imponderable,\nsuch as lightning, he has invented a class of typhonic, mindless\norganisms, exempt from the will of nature.\n\nWe have no understanding of creation, its process or meaning. The\nmachine is the externalized image of man\u2019s thoughts. It is furthermore\nan extension of his life, for we perceive as an economic fact that\nhuman existence in its present phase, on its present scale, could not\ncontinue in its absence. And what are we ourselves, life to begin\nwith, if not an image of thought? Perhaps it is true as a principle of\ncreation that the image and its creator must co-exist, inseparably.\n\nIn any light, man\u2019s further task is Jovian. That is to learn how best\nto live with these powerful creatures of his mind, how to give their\nfecundity a law and their functions a rhythm, how not to employ them in\nerror against himself\u2014since he cannot live without them.\n\n\n\n\n  _Each, pott 8vo, 2/6 net_      _Occasionally illustrated_\n\nTO-DAY AND TO-MORROW\n\n\nThis series of books, by some of the most distinguished English\nthinkers, scientists, philosophers, doctors, critics, and artists, was\nat once recognized as a noteworthy event. Written from various points\nof view, one book frequently opposing the argument of another, they\nprovide the reader with a stimulating survey of the most modern thought\nin many departments of life. Several volumes are devoted to the future\ntrend of Civilization, conceived as a whole; while others deal with\nparticular provinces, and cover the future of Woman, War, Population,\nClothes, Wireless, Morals, Drama, Poetry, Art, Sex, Law, etc.\n\nIt is interesting to see in these neat little volumes, issued at a low\nprice, the revival of a form of literature, the Pamphlet, which has\nbeen in disuse for 200 years.\n\n\n  _Published by_\n  KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.\n  Broadway House: 68-74 Carter Lane, London, E.C.4\n\n\n\n\nTO-DAY AND TO-MORROW\n\n\n_VOLUMES READY_\n\n =Daedalus=, or Science and the Future. By J. B. S. HALDANE, Reader in\n Biochemistry, University of Cambridge. _Sixth impression._\n\n\u201cA fascinating and daring little book.\u201d\u2014_Westminster Gazette._\n\u201cThe essay is brilliant, sparkling with wit and bristling with\nchallenges.\u201d\u2014_British Medical Journal._\n\n\u201cPredicts the most startling changes.\u201d\u2014_Morning Post._\n\n =Callinicus=, a Defence of Chemical Warfare. By J. B. S. HALDANE.\n _Second impression._\n\n\u201cMr. Haldane\u2019s brilliant study.\u201d\u2014_Times Leading Article._ \u201cA book to be\nread by every intelligent adult.\u201d\u2014_Spectator._ \u201cThis brilliant little\nmonograph.\u201d\u2014_Daily News._\n\n =Icarus=, or the Future of Science. By BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S.\n _Fourth impression._\n\n\u201cUtter pessimism.\u201d\u2014_Observer._ \u201cMr. Russell refuses to believe that\nthe progress of Science must be a boon to mankind.\u201d\u2014_Morning Post._\n\u201cA stimulating book, that leaves one not at all discouraged.\u201d\u2014_Daily\nHerald._\n\n =What I Believe.= By BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S. _Second impression._\n\n\u201cOne of the most brilliant and thought-stimulating little books I\nhave read\u2014a better book even than _Icarus_.\u201d\u2014_Nation._ \u201cSimply and\nbrilliantly written.\u201d\u2014_Nature._ \u201cIn stabbing sentences he punctures\nthe bubble of cruelty, envy, narrowness, and ill-will which those in\nauthority call their morals.\u201d\u2014_New Leader._\n\n =Tantalus=, or the Future of Man. By F. C. S. SCHILLER, D.Sc., Fellow\n of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. _Second impression._\n\n\u201cThey are all (_Daedalus_, _Icarus_, and _Tantalus_) brilliantly\nclever, and they supplement or correct one another.\u201d\u2014_Dean Inge_, in\n_Morning Post_. \u201cImmensely valuable and infinitely readable.\u201d\u2014_Daily\nNews._ \u201cThe book of the week.\u201d\u2014_Spectator._\n\n =Cassandra=, or the Future of the British Empire. By F. C. S.\n SCHILLER, D.Sc.\n\n\u201cWe commend it to the complacent of all parties.\u201d\u2014_Saturday Review._\n\u201cThe book is small, but very, very weighty; brilliantly written,\nit ought to be read by all shades of politicians and students of\npolitics.\u201d\u2014_Yorkshire Post._ \u201cYet another addition to that bright\nconstellation of pamphlets.\u201d\u2014_Spectator._\n\n =Quo Vadimus?= Glimpses of the Future. By E. E. FOURNIER D\u2019ALBE,\n D.Sc., author of \u201cSelenium, the Moon Element,\u201d etc.\n\n\u201cA wonderful vision of the future. A book that will be talked\nabout.\u201d\u2014_Daily Graphic._ \u201cA remarkable contribution to a remarkable\nseries.\u201d\u2014_Manchester Dispatch._ \u201cInteresting and singularly\nplausible.\u201d\u2014_Daily Telegraph._\n\n =Hephaestus=, the Soul of the Machine. By E. E. FOURNIER D\u2019ALBE, D.Sc.\n\n\u201cA worthy contribution to this interesting series. A delightful and\nthought-provoking essay.\u201d\u2014_Birmingham Post._ \u201cThere is a special\npleasure in meeting with a book like _Hephaestus_. The author has the\nmerit of really understanding what he is talking about.\u201d\u2014_Engineering._\n\n =Lysistrata=, or Woman\u2019s Future and Future Woman. By ANTHONY M.\n LUDOVICI, author of \u201cA Defence of Aristocracy\u201d, etc.\n\n\u201cA stimulating book. Volumes would be needed to deal, in the fullness\nhis work provokes, with all the problems raised.\u201d\u2014_Sunday Times._\n\u201cPro-feminine, but anti-feministic.\u201d\u2014 _Scotsman._ \u201cFull of brilliant\ncommon-sense.\u201d\u2014_Observer._\n\n =Hypatia=, or Woman and Knowledge. By MRS BERTRAND RUSSELL. With a\n frontispiece. _Second impression._\n\nAn answer to _Lysistrata_. \u201cA passionate vindication of the rights of\nwomen.\u201d\u2014_Manchester Guardian._ \u201cSays a number of things that sensible\nwomen have been wanting publicly said for a long time.\u201d\u2014_Daily Herald._\n\u201cEveryone who cares at all about these things should read it.\u201d\u2014_Weekly\nWestminster._\n\n =Thrasymachus=, the Future of Morals. By C. E. M. JOAD, author of\n \u201cCommon-Sense Ethics,\u201d etc.\n\n\u201cHis provocative book.\u201d\u2014_Graphic._ \u201cWritten in a style of deliberate\nbrilliance.\u201d\u2014_Times Literary Supplement._ \u201cAs outspoken and unequivocal\na contribution as could well be imagined. Even those readers who\ndissent will be forced to recognize the admirable clarity with which he\nstates his case. A book that will startle.\u201d\u2014_Daily Chronicle._\n\n =The Passing of the Phantoms=: a Study of Evolutionary Psychology and\n Morals. By C. J. PATTEN, Professor of Anatomy, Sheffield University.\n With 4 Plates.\n\n\u201cReaders of _Daedalus_, _Icarus_ and _Tantalus_, will be grateful for\nan excellent presentation of yet another point of view.\u201d\u2014_Yorkshire\nPost._ \u201cThis bright and bracing little book.\u201d\u2014 _Literary Guide._\n\u201cInteresting and original.\u201d\u2014_Medical Times._\n\n =The Mongol in our Midst=: a Study of Man and his Three Faces. By\n F. G. CROOKSHANK, M.D., F.R.C.P. With 28 Plates. _Second Edition,\n revised._\n\n\u201cA brilliant piece of speculative induction.\u201d\u2014_Saturday Review._\n\u201cAn extremely interesting and suggestive book, which will reward\ncareful reading.\u201d\u2014_Sunday Times._ \u201cThe pictures carry fearful\nconviction.\u201d\u2014_Daily Herald._\n\n =The Conquest of Cancer.= By H. W. S. WRIGHT, M.S., F.R.C.S.\n Introduction by F. G. CROOKSHANK, M.D.\n\n\u201cEminently suitable for general reading. The problem is fairly and\nlucidly presented. One merit of Mr. Wright\u2019s plan is that he tells\npeople what, in his judgment, they can best do, _here and now_.\u201d\u2014From\nthe _Introduction_.\n\n =Pygmalion=, or the Doctor of the Future. By R. MCNAIR WILSON, M.D.\n\n\u201cDr Wilson has added a brilliant essay to this series.\u201d\u2014_Times Literary\nSupplement._ \u201cThis is a very little book, but there is much wisdom in\nit.\u201d\u2014_Evening Standard._ \u201cNo doctor worth his salt would venture to say\nthat Dr Wilson was wrong.\u201d\u2014_Daily Herald._\n\n =Prometheus=, or Biology and the Advancement of Man. By H. S.\n JENNINGS, Professor of Zoology, Johns Hopkins University.\n\n\u201cThis volume is one of the most remarkable that has yet appeared in\nthis series. Certainly the information it contains will be due to\nmost educated laymen. It is essentially a discussion of ... heredity\nand environment, and it clearly establishes the fact that the current\nuse of these terms has no scientific justification.\u201d\u2014_Times Literary\nSupplement._ \u201cAn exceedingly brilliant book.\u201d\u2014_New Leader._\n\n =Narcissus=: an Anatomy of Clothes. By GERALD HEARD. With 19\n illustrations.\n\n\u201cA most suggestive book.\u201d\u2014_Nation._ \u201cIrresistible. Reading it is\nlike a switchback journey. Starting from prehistoric times we\nrocket down the ages.\u201d\u2014_Daily News._ \u201cInteresting, provocative, and\nentertaining.\u201d\u2014_Queen._\n\n =Thamyris=, or Is There a Future for Poetry? By R. C. TREVELYAN.\n\n\u201cLearned, sensible, and very well-written.\u201d\u2014_Affable Hawk_, in _New\nStatesman_. \u201cVery suggestive.\u201d\u2014_J. C. Squire_, in _Observer_. \u201cA very\ncharming piece of work. I agree with all, or at any rate, almost all\nits conclusions.\u201d\u2014_J. St. Loe Strachey_, in _Spectator_.\n\n =Proteus=, or the Future of Intelligence. By VERNON LEE, author of\n \u201cSatan the Waster,\u201d etc.\n\n\u201cWe should like to follow the author\u2019s suggestions as to the effect of\nintelligence on the future of Ethics, Aesthetics, and Manners. Her book\nis profoundly stimulating and should be read by everyone.\u201d\u2014_Outlook._\n\u201cA concise, suggestive piece of work.\u201d\u2014_Saturday Review._\n\n =Timotheus=, the Future of the Theatre. By BONAMY DOBR\u00c9E, author of\n \u201cRestoration Drama,\u201d etc.\n\n\u201cA witty, mischievous little book, to be read with delight.\u201d\u2014_Times\nLiterary Supplement._ \u201cThis is a delightfully witty book.\u201d\u2014_Scotsman._\n\u201cIn a subtly satirical vein he visualizes various kinds of\ntheatres in 200 years time. His gay little book makes delightful\nreading.\u201d\u2014_Nation._\n\n =Paris=, or the Future of War. By Captain B. H. LIDDELL HART.\n\nA companion volume to _Callinicus_. \u201cA gem of close thinking and\ndeduction.\u201d\u2014_Observer._ \u201cA noteworthy contribution to a problem of\nconcern to every citizen in this country.\u201d\u2014_Daily Chronicle._ \u201cThere is\nsome lively thinking about the future of war in _Paris_, just added to\nthis set of live-wire pamphlets on big subjects.\u201d\u2014_Manchester Guardian._\n\n =Wireless Possibilities.= By Professor A. M. LOW. With 4 diagrams.\n\n\u201cAs might be expected from an inventor who is always so fresh, he has\nmany interesting things to say.\u201d\u2014_Evening Standard._ \u201cThe mantle of\nBlake has fallen upon the physicists. To them we look for visions, and\nwe find them in this book.\u201d\u2014_New Statesman._\n\n =Perseus=: of Dragons. By H. F. SCOTT STOKES. With 2 illustrations.\n\n\u201cA diverting little book, chock-full of ideas. Mr. Stokes\u2019 dragon-lore\nis both quaint and various.\u201d\u2014_Morning Post._ \u201cVery amusingly written,\nand a mine of curious knowledge for which the discerning reader will\nfind many uses.\u201d\u2014_Glasgow Herald._\n\n =Lycurgus=, or the Future of Law. By E. S. P. HAYNES, author of\n \u201cConcerning Solicitors,\u201d etc.\n\n\u201cAn interesting and concisely written book.\u201d\u2014_Yorkshire Post._ \u201cHe\nroundly declares that English criminal law is a blend of barbaric\nviolence, medieval prejudices, and modern fallacies.... A humane\nand conscientious investigation.\u201d\u2014_T.P.\u2019s Weekly._ \u201cA thoughtful\nbook\u2014deserves careful reading.\u201d\u2014_Law Times._\n\n =Euterpe=, or the Future of Art. By LIONEL R. MCCOLVIN, author of \u201cThe\n Theory of Book-Selection.\u201d\n\n\u201cDiscusses briefly, but very suggestively, the problem of the future of\nart in relation to the public.\u201d\u2014_Saturday Review._ \u201cAnother indictment\nof machinery as a soul-destroyer ... a gloomy prospect, but Mr. Colvin\nhas the courage to suggest solutions.\u201d\u2014_Westminster Gazette._ \u201cThis is\naltogether a much-needed book.\u201d\u2014_New Leader._\n\n =Birth Control and the State=: a Plea and a Forecast. By C. P.\n BLACKER, _M.C._, M.A., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.\n\nJust published. A discussion of the arguments for and against Birth\nControl, considered from the personal, social, and international\naspects, and in its bearings upon the future. Summing up in its favour,\nthe author contends that the only adequate solution rests in the hands\nof the medical profession throughout the world.\n\n =Atlantis=, or America and the Future. By Colonel J. F. C. FULLER.\n\n\u201cMany hard things have been said about America, but few quite so\nbitter and caustic as these.\u201d\u2014_Daily Sketch._ \u201cThe whole of America\nas his subject. He can conjure up possibilities of a new Atlantis,\ncontrolled by the gods; but he requires a few centuries for the\ncommunication.\u201d\u2014_Clarion._\n\n =Midas=, or the United States and the Future. By C. H. BRETHERTON,\n author of \u201cThe Real Ireland,\u201d etc.\n\nA companion volume to _Atlantis_. \u201cFull of astute observations and\nacute reflections ... this wise and witty pamphlet, a provocation to\nthe thought that is creative.\u201d\u2014_Morning Post._ \u201cPacks a punch in every\nparagraph. One could hardly ask for more \u2018meat\u2019.\u201d\u2014_Spectator._\n\n =Nuntius=, or the Future of Advertising. By GILBERT RUSSELL.\n\n\u201cAnother booklet which looks wisely on the world of to-morrow. The\nfuture of advertising is very sanely considered here. We are heartily\nin agreement with the main thesis.\u201d\u2014_Spectator._ \u201cA thoughtful little\nbook.\u201d\u2014_Daily Sketch._\n\n =Pegasus=, or Problems of Transport. By Colonel J. F. C. FULLER,\n author of \u201cThe Reformation of War,\u201d etc. With 8 Plates.\n\n\u201cThe foremost military prophet of the day propounds a solution for\nindustrial and unemployment problems. It is a bold essay ... and calls\nfor the attention of all concerned with imperial problems.\u201d\u2014_Daily\nTelegraph._ \u201cWith a broad imaginative grasp he finds the solution [of\nunemployment] in \u2018tracked\u2019 vehicles.\u201d\u2014_Westminster Gazette._\n\n\u201cRight up to the high standard of the rest of this series.\u201d\u2014_Clarion._\n\n\n_READY SHORTLY_\n\n =Artifex=, or the Future of Craftsmanship. By JOHN GLOAG, author of\n \u201cTime, Taste, and Furniture.\u201d\n\nAfter a suggestive sketch of the history of craftsmanship, the\nauthor examines the possibilities in the use of machinery to extend\ncraftsmanship and make beautiful articles of commerce.\n\n =Plato\u2019s American Republic.= By J. D. WOODRUFF.\n\nA series of witty dialogues in the Platonic manner dealing with aspects\nof American life and manners.\n\n =Sybilla=, or the Future of Prophecy. By C. A. MACE, University of St.\n Andrew\u2019s.\n\nAn examination of the possibilities of scientific forecasting, with\nspecial reference to certain volumes in this series.\n\n =Orpheus=, or the Future of Music. By W. J. TURNER, author of \u201cMusic\n and Life.\u201d\n\n\n_IN PREPARATION_\n\n =Ouroboros=, or the Mechanical Extension of Mankind. By GARET GARRETT.\n\nMachine civilization has filled the world with its products. What will\nhappen when markets are over-flooded?\n\n =Gallio=, or the Tyranny of Science. By J. W. N. SULLIVAN, author of\n \u201cA History of Mathematics.\u201d\n\nAn attack on the values which science is so successfully imposing upon\ncivilization.\n\n =Mercurius=, or the World on Wings. By C. THOMPSON WALKER.\n\nA brilliant picture of the world as it will be when inevitable\ndevelopments in aircraft take place.\n\n =The Future of the English Language.= By BASIL DE S\u00c9LINCOURT, author\n of \u201cThe English Secret,\u201d etc.\n\nAn analysis of the present condition of the English language and the\npaths along which it is progressing.\n\n =The Future of Architecture.= By CHRISTIAN BARMAN, editor of \u201cThe\n Architects\u2019 Journal.\u201d\n\nA survey of the condition of architecture and developments to be\nexpected in the future.\n\n =Delphos=, or the Future of International Language. By E. SYLVIA\n PANKHURST.\n\n =Caliban=, or the Future of Industrial Capitalism. By HILAIRE BELLOC.\n\n =The Future of Futurism.= By JOHN RODKER.\n\n =The Future of Films.= By FRANCIS BETTS.\n\n\n\n\n  Transcriber\u2019s Notes\n\n  pg 33 Changed: It is a sympton of saturation\n             to: It is a symptom of saturation\n\n  pg 37 Changed: costly piece of machinary to build\n             to: costly piece of machinery to build\n\n  pg 58 Changed: It is true of people, as indivuals\n             to: It is true of people, as individuals\n\n  pg 59 Changed: never succeeding ind is possessing\n             to: never succeeding and is possessing\n\n  pg 65 Changed: For a quarter of a century prices feel continuously\n             to: For a quarter of a century prices fell continuously\n\n  pg 65 Changed: while solemn ecomomic bodies\n             to: while solemn economic bodies\n\n  pg 65 Changed: economic bodies sat pondering the phenomenom\n             to: economic bodies sat pondering the phenomenon\n\n  pg 76 Changed: To enforce the rules bcame everyone\u2019s duty\n             to: To enforce the rules became everyone\u2019s duty\n\n  pg 76 Changed: From this would germinate a moral sensel.\n             to: From this would germinate a moral sense.\n\n  pg 81 Changed: whose hards soever they or any of them shall be found\n             to: whose hands soever they or any of them shall be found\n\n  pg 83 Changed: much of it as she she should be obliged\n             to: much of it as she should be obliged\n\n  pg 8 Changed: requires a few centuries for the communation\n            to: requires a few centuries for the communication","title":"Ouroboros; or, the mechanical extension of mankind","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":18439}