Ouroboros Or The Mechanical Extension Of Mankind

OUROBOROS OR The Mechanical Extension of Mankind BY GARET GARRETT NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE COPYRIGHT, 1926 By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY Alt 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. CONTENTS PAGE I. THE QUEST SINCE ADAM II. THE MACHINE AS IF III. THE LAW OF MACHINES i 19 29 IV. WHO MIND THEM OR STARVE 42 V. THE PARADOX OF SURPLUS 61 VI. IN PERIL OF TRADE VII. DIM VISTAS NEW Til 77 91 OUROBOROS OUROBOROS THE QUEST SINCE ADAM O N E 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. So long as the character of our economic life was agricultural, as it almost wholly was until a very recent time, the attack was naive. In the file of prayers, if one is kept, the thickest, dustiest bundle is that of our supplications for plenty—miraculous plenty without worry or price. We were loath to believe that the second arrangement between God and Adam made at the gate of exit— Cursed is the ground for thy sake; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread to OUROBOROS —was forever; and for a long time afterward local weather conditions were wistfully misunderstood, as a chastisement when they were bad and a sign of relenting when they were good. It was forever. Nature's ring was closed, never again to open for any darling fructuary. That is to say, man's taking from the soil is an arbitrary wage. He may increase the gross of it a little by exerting himself more; the scale he cannot alter. If tilth for the individual has been made easier somewhat and more productive by the use of wheeled implements, power tools and now airplanes to dust the orchard with insecticide, these, you must remember, represent a tremendous increase of effort by mankind at large upon the principle of limited fecundity that governs the earth. When at length the realistic mind perceived that here was a natural fact upon which prayers, thanksgiving, sacrifice, idolatry, and the pretentions of magic were all alike wasted, the spiritual part of us no doubt had been willing to accept the sen[2] THE QUEST SINCE ADAM tence. Not so the earthy and lusty part. The curse was heavy. There was never a risk man would not take, no kind of heroic exertion he would spare himself, to escape the evil, the boredom, the drudgery of repetitious toil. From such puerile motivation came the Age of Discovery, then physical science, purposeful mechanical invention, the industrial era, and all the artificial marvels of the modern world. These effects are historically traceable; and if it should occur to you to wonder why they are so much more vivid and astonishing in the West than in the East, that is easily explained. The European mind went on with the phantasy of an earthly paradise of plenty and leisure after the Oriental mind in weariness of wisdom had given it up. Until four hundred years ago the Europeans believed that somewhere in the world was a fabulous land whose inhabitants lived as in dreams, eating and drinking from golden vessels, wearing priceless jewels like [3] OUROBOROS common beads, sated with ease and luxury. King, courts, astronomers, and navigators believed this. The vulgar fancy was for a place such as Cockaigne of the medieval ballads where all features of the landscape were good to eat or drink and nobody ever was obliged to