From the vast
office, with its atmosphere of busy, concentrated quiet, punctuated
by the clicking of many typewriters, I was led through doors and
passages, and at length came upon the shrieking inferno of the shops.
The uproar and din were maddening. Overhead, huge cranes were
swinging great bulks of steel from one end of the cavernous shed to
the other; vague figures were moving obscurely in the murk; the
floor was piled and littered with heaps of iron-work of unimaginable
shapes. After a time we made our way into another area where there
was more quiet but no less confusion. I yelled to my guide, "Such a
rumpus and row I never saw; it is chaos come again!" And he
replied, "Why, to me it is all a perfect order. Everything is in its
place. Every man has his special job and does it. I know the meaning
and purpose of all those parts that seem to you to be thrown around
in such a mess. If you could follow the course of making from the
draughting-rooms to the finishing-shop, if you could see the process
at once as a whole, you would understand that it is all a complete
harmony, every part working with every other part to a definite
end." It was not I but my friend who had the truth of the matter.
Where for me there was only chaos, for him was order. And the
difference was that he had the clue which I had not. His sense of the
meaning of the parts brought the scattering details into a final unity;
and therein he found harmony and satisfaction.

I went away much impressed by what I had seen. When I had
collected my wits a little in the comparative calm of the streets, it
occurred to me that the immense workshops were a symbol of man's
life in the world. In the instant of experience all seems chaos. At
close range, in direct contact with the facts and demands of every
day, we feel how confusing and distracting it all is. Life is beating in
upon us at every point; all our senses are assailed at once. Each new
day brings its conflicting interests and obligations. Now, whether we
are aware of it or not, our constant effort is, out of the great variety
of experience pressing in upon us, to select such details as make to a
definite purpose and end. Instinctively we grope toward and attract
to us that which is special and proper to our individual development.
Our progress is toward harmony. By the adjustment of new material
to the shaping principle of our experience, the circle of our
individual lives widens its circumference. We