Show i Are You Only a Machine I J fEN V Clarence Darrow saved Loeb and andI I t W vy Leopold from the gallows he merely prevented a couple of machines from going to the junk heap That's what the keen Chicago lawyer thinks In a debate in Boston he argued strenuously that all men are only machines This conclusion of course is not one that Darrow delights in A number of the wrinkles and lines on that face of his were p put t there by his somber meditations on man and his destiny But to Darrow there is no escape m mechanism is the explaining principle principle prin- prin ciple of all life There is no way of definitely proving I in black and white mathematical exactitude i that this mechanistic theory theory- is wrong But Butin Butin in the heart of nearly every man there must rise up an instinctive protest against it Are we we machines We Ve do not believe we e are but if it be true even Darrow must admit that we are the most cunningly devised de- de vied machines that ever graced this or any planet I For look while we machines behave in s same me ways as all att other machines behave needing fuel repair and rest and even wearing wearing wear wear- ing out wh when n worked too hard we respond some very intangible stimuli We Ve are moved by things that move no other machines ma- ma chines in existence we have controlling but but- t tons ns and aId levers leyers that can be pressed only by unseen hands indeed we generate our own far down inside i A ittle bit of colored with stars i 1 one corner and red and white stripes across it its breadth has moved myriads of these machines machines ma- ma chines to face death abstract words like justice jus- jus lice tice and freedom have caused others to undergo undergo un- un dergo all kinds of hardships and self denials such things as love and faith have have- been mighty forces more powerful than hunger or weariness or fear or cold Further Furthermore some of these machines have done very subtle and delicate work One of them wrote the Eroica symphony another designed ned SL S1 Peters Peter's another wrote Leaves of read Grass that some time if you think youre you're a soulless machine another another an- an other painted the Sistine Madonna Machines like these are machines of a transcendental kind They are not machines Io in the ordinary sense of the word and aid all the scientists in the world cannot prove that they are They are woven out of finer stuff than any of us have dreamed nd the blind hope that is an integral part of them was not not put there without a reason pi |