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In the meantime, Fafnir, wallowing in dividends which he has done nothing to earn, may rot, intellectually and morally, from mere disuse of his energies and lack of incentive to excel; but the more imbecile he becomes, the more dependent he is upon Alberic, and the more the responsibility of keeping the world-machine in working order falls upon Alberic.
A careful comparison of all the facts accessible seems to show that in Europe, at least, suicide bears a certain definite relation to education and manufactures; and that, as I have already said, it is a by-product of the great, complicated world-machine that we call modern civilization.
But for whose benefit is this entertainment given? For the smug and noble "We," that they may not lose conceit with themselves: they may possibly have taken sudden fright, in the midst of the inflexible and pitiless wheel-works of the world-machine, and are tremulously imploring their leader to come to their aid.
Once our grasp tightens on the windpipe of the world, we're safe. From our office in Wall Street you and I can play the keys of the world-machine as an organist would finger his instrument. But there must be no leak; no publicity; no suspicion aroused.
Atomism, however, was for Boyle merely an instrument of method and not a philosophical theory of the world. A sincerely religious man, he regards with disfavor both the atheism of Epicurus and his complete rejection of teleology the world-machine points to an intelligent Creator and a purpose in creation; motion, to a divine impulse.
He finds the most certain proof for the existence of an intelligent creator in the wonderful arrangement of the world-machine, which does not need after-adjustment at the hands of its creator, and whose adaptation he praises as enthusiastically as he unconditionally rejects the mingling of teleological considerations in the explanation of physical phenomena.
Once, as the horses turned corner after corner, the sentence of a meditative Frenchman crossed her mind; words which said that the only satisfaction for man lies in being dans l'ordre; in unity, that is, with the great world-machine in which he finds himself; fighting with it, not against it. Her mind played about this thought; then returned to Manisty and Lucy.
The living TREE Igdrasil, with the melodious prophetic waving of its world-wide boughs, deep-rooted as Hela, has died out into the clanking of a World-MACHINE. "Tree" and "Machine:" contrast these two things. I, for my share, declare the world to be no machine!
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