hing is its Idea.

A beautiful thing is beautiful in proportion as its form reveals the
nature of its substance, that is, conveys its idea.

Machinery is beautiful by reason of immeasurable ideas consummately
expressed.

PART FOUR

THE IDEAS BEHIND THE MACHINES

The ideas of machinery in their several phases are sketched in
chapters as follows:

I. II. The idea of the incarnation. The God in the body of the man.

III. The idea of liberty--the soul's rescue from environment.

IV. The idea of immortality.

V. The idea of God.

VI. The idea of the Spirit--of the Unseen and Intangible.

VII. The practical idea of invoking great men.

VIII. The religious idea of love and comradeship.

* * * * *

Note.--The present volume is the first of a series which had their
beginnings in some articles in the _Atlantic_ a few years ago,
answering or trying to answer the question, "Can a machine age have a
soul?" Perhaps it is only fair to the present conception, as it
stands, to suggest that it is an overture, and that the various phases
and implications of machinery--the general bearing of machinery in our
modern life, upon democracy, and upon the humanities and the arts, are
being considered in a series of three volumes called:

I. The Voice of the Machines.

II. Machines and Millionaires.

III. Machines and Crowds.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

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