the perfected result, build the fine engine.

O.M. You would require much of this one?

Y.M. Oh, indeed yes.

O.M. It could drive lathes, drills, planers, punches, polishers, in a
word all the cunning machines of a great factory?

Y.M. It could.

O.M. What could the stone engine do?

Y.M. Drive a sewing-machine, possibly--nothing more, perhaps.

O.M. Men would admire the other engine and rapturously praise it?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. But not the stone one?

Y.M. No.

O.M. The merits of the metal machine would be far above those of the
stone one?

Y.M. Of course.

O.M. Personal merits?

Y.M. PERSONAL merits? How do you mean?

O.M. It would be personally entitled to the credit of its own
performance?

Y.M. The engine? Certainly not.

O.M. Why not?

Y.M. Because its performance is not personal. It is the result of the
law of construction. It is not a MERIT that it does the things which it
is set to do--it can't HELP doing them.

O.M. And it is not a personal demerit in the stone machine that it does
so little?

Y.M. Certainly not. It does no more and no less than the law of its make
permits and compels it to do. There is nothing PERSONAL about it; it
cannot choose. In this process of "working up to the matter" is it your
idea to work up to the proposition that man and a machine are about the
same thing, and that there is no personal merit in the performance of
either?

O.M. Yes--but do not be offended; I am meaning no offense. What makes
the grand difference between the stone engine and the steel one? Shall
we call it training, education? Shall we call the stone engine a savage
and the steel one a civilized man? The original rock contained the stuff
of which the steel one was built--but along with a lot of sulphur and
stone and other obstructing inborn heredities, brought down from the old
geologic ages--prejudices, let us call them. Prejudices which nothing
within the rock itself had either POWER to remove or any DESIRE to
remove. Will you take note of that phrase?

Y.M. Yes. I have written it down; "Prejudices which nothing within the
rock itself had either power to remove or any desire to remove." Go on.

O.M. Prejudices must be removed by OUTSIDE INFLUENCES or not at all. Put
that down.

Y.M. Very well; "Must be removed by outside influences or not at all."
Go on.

O.M. The iron's prejudice against ridding itself of the cumbering rock.
To make it more exact, the iron's absolute INDIFFERENC