KEYS TO PLENTY

DIVISION

THE NEW MEANING OF BUSINESS

TOMORROW

MACHINE PEOPLE

I

Man’s Fear of Machines Is Dread of Himself

THE spirit of man is in his machines. He sees it and is afraid. So also his spirit was in pyramids and temples. Yet these evoke simple feelings of awe and admiration whereas the machine inspires a sentiment of dread. Where lies that difference?

Copyright, 1926

By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

Digital Edition by the Ludwig von Mises Institute 2012

eISBN: 9781610165709

All Rights Reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Ouroboros was a fabulous snake, the encircling serpent, that swallowed its own tail. It represented an infantile thought of the human mind for wish fulfilment by magical means. Man’s heroic business was to conquer the reptile. As he did this he seized the object he most desired. He might even wish himself into solid gold.

THE QUEST SINCE ADAM

One story of us is continuous. It is the story of our struggle to recapture the Garden of Eden, meaning by that a state of existence free from the doom of toil.

THE MACHINE AS IF

Either the machine has a meaning to life that we have not yet been able to interpret in a rational manner or it is itself a manifestation of life and therefore mysterious. We have seen it grow. We know it to be the exterior reality of our own ideas. Thus we are very familiar with it, as with our arms and legs, and see it in much the same way—that is to say, imperfectly and in some aspects not at all. Certainly it would look very different if for a moment we could see it from an original point of view with the eye of new wonder.