708 TECHNOLOGY AND CIVILIZATION. 



East, for example, in Armenia and in Abyssinia, entirely outside the 

 contemplation of our victorious modern technology ? In the past they 

 have added naught thereto and to-day they are not its contributors. 



It can not be the things themselves, the inventions, but the engen- 

 dering thought which must have produced the change, the innovation. 

 In fact we can but ascribe this to a peculiar progress in thought 

 precedence, a ditticult, dangerous ascent to a higher, freer comprehen- 

 sion of nature. 



The spell which bound us was broken by our understanding when we 

 found the forces of nature following in their o])erations no capricious 

 will— a Godlj' will — but working according to steadfast, unchangeable 

 laws — the laws of nature ; never otherwise. 



Accordiug to laws mighty, fixed, eternal, 

 Mast we complete our being's circle 



breathe Goethe's words from out the terrors of nature's inexorable 

 power. But according to "laws mighty, fixed, eternal" roll the worlds, 

 the stars pursue their course, a tile falls from the roof or a drop from 

 its cloud height. 



Suns wander up and down, 

 Worlds go and come again, 

 And this no wish can alter. 



In this grand poetical form is seized the same uplifting knowledge 

 that not the bodily but the spiritual force incloses within itself the pre- 

 sentiment of God, that even the world's creation consists in the immu- 

 tability of its laws. That it might win the knowledge, thought broke 

 through the old barriers, but immediately drew from real life con- 

 clusions such as these, if we may utter them quite free from secondary 

 considerations. 



If we bring lifeless bodies into such circumstances that their working 

 of natural laws answers our purposes, we may permit them instead of 

 this labor to work for living beings. 



This began to be carried out with intelligence, and thereby was created 

 our present technology. Scientific technology I must name it. When 

 the spirit entertained the idea which sought to make natural laws a con- 

 scious power, scarcely anything was known of these laws and they must 

 first be wooed. Through hard battle indeed must they be won, for 

 the learned world believed itself to have them in its possession. The 

 reformer had therefore not simply to make the discovery, but to 

 accomi)lish the .-^^igautic task of overcoming antagonistic convictions 

 and at the same time to sui)port a spiritual camj)aign up to the heights 

 of freer knowledge, for this march found weighty opposition in the 

 decrees of the church, which had demanded its sacrifice. The victory 

 was won, and therewith our present technology gained the command. 

 The opposing current of the time had spent itself, comi)rehendiug, per- 

 haps, its injustice, for do not its first representatives travel as gaily 

 upon tU© rq/jlroad, telephone, and telegraph as do others ? Only small 



