Page 252 - erewhon

to drive; in like manner the engine will cease to work if it
is insufficiently fed. The only difference is, that the man is
conscious about his wants, and the engine (beyond refusing
to work) does not seem to be so; but this is temporary, and
has been dealt with above.
‘Accordingly, the requisite strength being given to the
motives that are to drive the driver, there has never, or
hardly ever, been an instance of a man stopping his engine
through wantonness. But such a case might occur; yes, and
it might occur that the engine should break down: but if the
train is stopped from some trivial motive it will be found
either that the strength of the necessary influences has been
miscalculated, or that the man has been miscalculated, in
the same way as an engine may break down from an un-
suspected flaw; but even in such a case there will have been
no spontaneity; the action will have had its true parental
causes: spontaneity is only a term for man’s ignorance of
the gods.
‘Is there, then, no spontaneity on the part of those who
drive the driver?’
Here followed an obscure argument upon this subject,
which I have thought it best to omit. The writer resumes:-
‘After all then it comes to this, that the difference between
the life of a man and that of a machine is one rather of
degree than of kind, though differences in kind are not
wanting. An animal has more provision for emergency than
a machine. The machine is less versatile; its range of action
is narrow; its strength and accuracy in its own sphere are
superhuman, but it shows badly in a dilemma; sometimes

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