James Beck

A few men, however, standing on the mountain ranges of human observation, saw the future more clearly than did the mass.

It not only accepted progress as an unmistakable fact--mistaking, however, acceleration and facilitation for progress--but in its mad folly believed in an immutable law of progress which, working with the blind forces of machinery, would…

Of all this, the nineteenth century, in its exultant pride in its conquest of the invisible forces, was almost blind.

As man slowly pulls himself out of that gigantic wreck and recovers consciousness, he begins to realize that speed is not necessarily progress.

In all of them, the individual had been submerged in group formations, and the effect upon the character of man has been destructive of his nobler self.

What was true of Germany, however, was true--although in lesser degree--of all civilized nations.

Its dominating mechanical spirit so submerged the individual that, in 1914, the paradox was observed of an enlightened nation that was seemingly destitute of a conscience.

Indeed, the moral lesson of the tragedy of Germany is the demoralizing influence of organization carried to the nth power.

We are now beginning to see--slowly, but surely--that a faculty of organization which, as such, submerged the spirit of individualism, is not an unmixed good.

Possibly, the greatest result of the mechanical age is this spirit of organization.

A mass morality has been substituted for individual morality, and unfortunately, group morality generally intensifies the vices more than the virtues of man.

With the submergence of the individual, whether he be capitalist or wage-earner, into a group, there has followed the dissipation of moral responsibility.

The true justification for the American anti-monopoly statutes, including the Sherman anti-trust law, lies not so much in the realm of economics as in that of morals.

Man is fast ceasing to be the unit of human society.

The specialization of our modern mechanical civilization has caused a submergence of the individual into the group or class.

To-day millions who simply watch an automatic infallible machine, which requires neither strength nor skill, do not sing at their work but too many curse the fate, which has chained them, like Ixion, to a soulless machine.

Take from man the opportunity of work and the sense of pride in achievement and you have taken from him the very life of his existence.

But suppose the development of labour-saving machinery should reach a stage where all human labour was eliminated, what would be the effect on man?

Indeed, it would be impossible; for, in speaking of its evils, I freely recognize that not only would civilization perish without its beneficent aid, but that every step forward in the history of man has been coincident with, and in large…

Has the increase in the potential of human power, through thermodynamics, been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the potential of human character?

The great indictment, however, of the present age of mechanical power is that it has largely destroyed the spirit of work.

Its banks are wide and its current is swift, but the turbid stream that flows onward is one of muddy swirls and eddies and overflows its banks to their destruction.

Their thoughts were few and simple, but what they lacked in quantity they made up in unsurpassed quality.

If it printed only the truth, its value would be infinite; but who can say in what proportions of this vast volume of printed matter is the true and the false?

No one can question its educational possibilities, for the best of all colleges is potentially the University of Gutenberg.