-house of
inertia and momentum the fly-wheel, or at the buffers on a railway
carriage; let him see how those improvements are being selected for
perpetuity which contain provision against the emergencies that may arise
to harass the machines, and then let him think of a hundred thousand
years, and the accumulated progress which they will bring unless man can
be awakened to a sense of his situation, and of the doom which he is
preparing for himself. {6}

"The misery is that man has been blind so long already. In his reliance
upon the use of steam he has been betrayed into increasing and
multiplying. To withdraw steam power suddenly will not have the effect
of reducing us to the state in which we were before its introduction;
there will be a general break-up and time of anarchy such as has never
been known; it will be as though our population were suddenly doubled,
with no additional means of feeding the increased number. The air we
breathe is hardly more necessary for our animal life than the use of any
machine, on the strength of which we have increased our numbers, is to
our civilisation; it is the machines which act upon man and make him man,
as much as man who has acted upon and made the machines; but we must
choose between the alternative of undergoing much present suffering, or
seeing ourselves gradually superseded by our own creatures, till we rank
no higher in comparison with them, than the beasts of the field with
ourselves.

"Herein lies our danger. For many seem inclined to acquiesce in so
dishonourable a future. They say that although man should become to the
machines what the horse and dog are to us, yet that he will continue to
exist, and will probably be better off in a state of domestication under
the beneficent rule of the machines than in his present wild condition.
We treat our domestic animals with much kindness. We give them whatever
we believe to be the best for them; and there can be no doubt that our
use of meat has increased their happiness rather than detracted from it.
In like manner there is reason to hope that the machines will use us
kindly, for their existence will be in a great measure dependent upon
ours; they will rule us with a rod of iron, but they will not eat us;
they will not only require our services in the reproduction and education
of their young, but also in waiting upon them as servants; in gathering
food for them, and feeding them; in restoring them to health when they