Excerpt from Technocracy, First and Second Series
Note - The author shows that the forces of the four great human instincts - to live, to make, to take, to control - are as essential in modern social life as at any time in the past. But all of these urges in a living democracy should be controlled without being controlled. To achieve this seeming paradox we must have a great national purpose, and unselfish leadership such as could come through a National Council of Scientists.
Mr. William Henry Smyth has been in general practice as a consulting engineer since 1879. He is the inventor of many machines and mechanical devices, including a system of raising water by direct explosion on its surface, the device being known as the "direct explosion pump." He has been an engineering expert in many patent cases, and is a frequent contributor to technical journals. As well as a pioneer in mechanics, Mr. Smyth is a pioneer in economics. He is a member of the leading scholarly associations in that field, including the American Economic Association and the Royal Economic Society of Great Britain.
Parts I, II and III appeared originally in "Industrial Management" of New York. The concluding Part IV has not heretofore been published and will appear exclusively in The Gazette. - Editor.
Instincts Control.
Instinct are the most persistent human urge factors. Seemingly, they are less subject to change than even the most unchanging aspects of our physical environment.
The Instinct to Live (self-preservation) is as dominating today as in the days of our cave-man ancestors; the Instinct to Construct is as persistent in Man as in the beaver; the Mastery Instinct (desire to control others) is as vital as ever; the Thievish Instinct (desire to acquire and hoard) shows no change, and is the same old urge as that disclosed by the pre-man stores of insects, birds and various animals.
Indeed, without these primordial urges Man could not have developed, and the loss or atrophy of any one of them would probably mean the rapid extinction of the race. Thus it would seem that our fundamental instincts are essentially necessary to human continuance - at least, to our social existence. So let us look once more at these vital factors, in the light of recent events, in order to see what part they now take and are likely to play in our future social economy.
Brute Force.
No lesson of the war, probably, is more obvious or more clearly defined than the rapid trend toward Skill as a predominating and controlling factor in our immediate social development.
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