The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1897-01-22
The Relation Between
Man and Machinery.
Thinkers Have Feared Over
development of Machine.
Mechanism Always Produces the
Most Accurate Results.

l success or a failure, says the New Yorl
| Commercial Advertiser, surely we shal
| evntuslly have a machine that will d,
| ali that has been claimed for twill
register the viii of the voter beyond tn,
power OF unserupulous election inspector,
TO change, and will announce the result ol
tho election the instant the polls are
closed. No one who is at all familiar
with the complicated machines in con-
slant use can doubt the ability OF the
modern inventor 10 meet all the require.
ments OF secret. honest and secure voting
and fair count. OF course there are
many primitive appliances even in thi.
inventive land, but the fault is not with
the inventors. For example, railroad
men do not doubt that there are perfect
inventions for the instant ana safe
coupling of cars without the intervenlio
OF man, but owing to the time and
trouble il would take to test and choose
they are content with what they have.
In the case OF many appliances the impor-
tance OF the work is not enough to war
rant the expenditure Of effort ana time.
1t is reasonably safe to say that anything
that man can do, q machine can do, except
in the matter of brain work..
Even here machines can do some things
with greater accuracy and speed than
men. There are calculating machines
that will give results very quickly and
always with certainty where man would
require long time and would be in
"a IN ha ~
tation. George Eliot was so strongly
impressed by a machine in tho Bank of
England which threw lightweight bit pieces
of gold on one side and full-weight on
the other that she pretended to fear man
would at last superseded oy machines.
Mr.. Babbage, the inventor OF very
Wonderful calculating machine had-s
confidence in the posi- biIities of mac hi ue-
thinking that any person less experienced
would ridicule. He expected such amaz-
Ing Inventions to come iniO use that i'm
the prime of life he said he would gladly
give up his remaining years IL he could
be allowed to live only three days FIVE
hundred years hence and have scientific
cicerone to explain things to him.
He was especially hopeful Ms to calcu.
iating machines, believing they could be
made not merely to work out sums but
to perform the most complex processes of
even giving proofs of ma
thematicsl theorems. He was sure, in
spite of ali ridicule, that machine might
be made which would play games OF skill
such as chess-actuslly to take the place
OF tue player and lind out perfect play
itself, although he admitted that many
generations Of poor human players had
not been able to discover 1t. He under
took to demonstrate his contention by
making machine to find perfect play in
the simple game of tit-tat-to. Between
this and chess he maintained the differ
ence Is only one of degree.
liz the ingenuity OF machines can sur
pass that of mortals in one department
here is no reason why 1t should not In
others. Perhaps the great author was
tight who said that at lenght men and
machines will have TO change places, and |
hat instead of man employing machin- |
Try, machines will employ "manpery.
IL may be, however, that not even as |
he slave of machines will man, having
70 many frailties, find employment in
he world. Up to the present all the
machines require men behind
hem-an inventor Of brains ana mon Of |
killed hands for their construction.
fet II we may invent machine that can
ind perfect play in chess, as Mr.. Bar b,ge
lolds, what is there to prevent the inyen.
ion OF machine that will Itself invent
nacnines as they are required?
Ii Is known that the most accurate pro-
esses of MIND are mechanical, and the
uestion has been raised seriously
rhetber IL would not elevate man intel
sctually II he could get rid of self.con-
ciousness. What is called unconscious
re eorstion-the working out of pre-
lens when tn conscious intelligence is
employed-resuits in accurate
For example, when one
ties in vain to recall name or a NUN.
or or something of the kind he puts IL
ut of mind and says it will "come to
i'm" after q while, and IL does. His
rain, without consciousness, has been
work and found what il sou,nt.
rthur Helps asserts that the greatest
ioughts OF great men, their most bril-.
ant ideas, are not the result of sitting
own to think over a subject, but are
ldeu flashes Of light which come wh,n
'e mind Is thinking of something else.
J other words, the best ideas are the
'oduct OF thought freed from the pre-
dices and limitations Of self-consoiouE-
'ss.
II the chief purpose of life were the
ing OF things AMI the production of
e largest possible quantity of articles,
10 setting up of ideal in,titutions OF
'vernment ana the abolition OF all the
udgery and difficulties of life, probably
acbines might bs invented TO do the
ork better than men, and humanity.
tb its frsilties and foibIes, could well
dispensed with. IL is o question. how :
er, whsth her II Is as important 20 smooth =
80 "a | y