This is a great step towards their becoming, if not
animate, yet something so near akin to it, as not to differ more widely
from our own life than animals do from vegetables. And though man should
remain, in some respects, the higher creature, is not this in accordance
with the practice of nature, which allows superiority in some things to
animals which have, on the whole, been long surpassed? Has she not
allowed the ant and the bee to retain superiority over man in the
organisation of their communities and social arrangements, the bird in
traversing the air, the fish in swimming, the horse in strength and
fleetness, and the dog in self-sacrifice?
"It is said by some with whom I have conversed upon this subject, that
the machines can never be developed into animate or _quasi_-animate
existences, inasmuch as they have no reproductive system, nor seem ever
likely to possess one. If this be taken to mean that they cannot marry,
and that we are never likely to see a fertile union between two vapour-
engines with the young ones playing about the door of the shed, however
greatly we might desire to do so, I will readily grant it. But the
objection is not a very profound one.
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