A NEW PHASE OF AN OLD CONFLICT 553 



Only ideal machines convert one form of energy exclusively into 

 one other, desired, form. A plant is a machine that uses the rays of the 

 sun directly for building up its body, a thing man can not do ; but it is 

 not a perfect machine, since it does not convert all the solar energy it 

 receives to its own uses. From the human standpoint, a plant is a ma- 

 chine for storing up energy of solar radiation in the form of food for 

 man. We have the data for comparing the energy available to the plant 

 with that stored up. The result of the comparison is striking. The 

 plant stores up, in fact, less than one-hundredth part of the energy it 

 receives. The relation between the total energy received by a machine 

 and that which it utilizes we call the figure of merit of the machine. 

 This technical expression is but an extension of a colloquial figure of 

 speech: thus, we call an electric generator "good" if it converts 97 

 per cent, of energy received into electric current, and " bad " if it only 

 converts 85 per cent. In the final summing up, the moral concept of 

 "good" and "bad" must unavoidably rest on the same basis, inasmuch 

 as all things that happen are but energy manifestations. 



Every change in the form of energy is accompanied by a dissipation 

 of part of it in the form of heat. This loss may be compared with the 

 material losses, in the way of saw-dust, chips, etc., which accompany 

 the work of carpenter or stone cutter. We may look on the heat dissi- 

 pated by machines as an undesirable by-product. Actual machines 

 fall far short of ideal ones in their figure of merit, that is in their effi- 

 ciency, but those made by human hands are relatively much less waste- 

 ful of energy than those furnished by nature. 



The inefficiency of our practical mechanisms, compared with their 

 theoretical efficiency, is a measure of our stupidity or unskillfulness. 

 In this respect improvement is constantly taking place. All technology 

 is devoted to the conversion of crude energy into forms useful to man. 

 The " figure of merit " in the transformation is a gauge of our culture 

 in this field. Let us consider what is the scope, upward, of technology 

 in the sense referred to. We have not yet quite got rid of the ancient 

 view of work, and hence of technical operations, as being something 

 low. It is interesting to recall that Aristotle held the institution of 

 slavery, on which the civilization of Greece and Eome rested, to be 

 inevitably necessary for all time, since he could not picture to himself 

 how the crude labor of grinding corn, pumping water and the like 

 could be done at all, if not by slaves. Later times have taught us to 

 solve the slave problem by the inanimate agencies of wind, water and 

 coal, which make superfluous the lowest forms of human labor. In 

 this illustration we see to what a high degree technical progress has 

 had a humanizing influence by reducing the amount of de-humanizing 

 work. Without technical advances, we would have to have slaves to-day, 

 and would still be, in the development of social conscience, ages behind 



vol. lxxxv. — 38. 



