"The bearing of all this upon the machines is not immediately apparent,
but will become so presently. In the meantime I must deal with friends
who tell me that, though the future is fixed as regards inorganic matter,
and in some respects with regard to man, yet that there are many ways in
which it cannot be considered as fixed. Thus, they say that fire applied
to dry shavings, and well fed with oxygen gas, will always produce a
blaze, but that a coward brought into contact with a terrifying object
will not always result in a man running away. Nevertheless, if there be
two cowards perfectly similar in every respect, and if they be subjected
in a perfectly similar way to two terrifying agents, which are themselves
perfectly similar, there are few who will not expect a perfect similarity
in the running away, even though a thousand years intervene between the
original combination and its being repeated.
"The apparently greater regularity in the results of chemical than of
human combinations arises from our inability to perceive the subtle
differences in human combinations--combinations which are never
identically repeated. Fire we know, and shavings we know, but no two men
ever were or ever will be exactly alike; and the smallest difference may
change the whole conditions of the problem.
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