Progress in knowledge has a directly spiritual significance [pg 272] when it is interpreted by thought. It makes us recognize, ever more completely, that everything which exists is power, that is to say, will-to-live; it is ever making larger the circle of the will-to-live of which we can form conceptions by analogy with our own. What a significance it has for our meditation on the world that we have discovered in the cell an individual existence, in the capacity of which for activity and suffering we see repeated the elements of our own vitality! By our ever-growing knowledge we are roused to ever greater astonishment at that secret of life which surrounds us on every hand. From simple simplicity we arrive at a more profound simplicity. From our knowledge comes also power over the forces of nature. Our powers of movement and of action are increased in an extraordinary way. There comes about a far-reaching change in the circumstances of our life. The progress which accompanies it, however, is not to the same extent an advantage for the development of man. By the power we obtain over the forces of nature we do indeed free ourselves from nature, and make her serviceable to us, but at the same time we thereby also cut ourselves loose from her, and slip into conditions of life, the unnatural character of which brings with it dangers of many sorts. We press the forces of nature into our service by means of machines. There is a story in the writings of Chwang-tse of how a pupil of Confucius saw a gardener who, to get water for his flower-beds, went down to the spring with his bucket every time. So he asked him whether he would not like to lessen his labour. “How can I?” replied the other. “You take a long piece of wood for a lever,” said Confucius’ pupil, “weighted behind, but light in front; with this you dip for the water and it comes up without the least trouble. They call this device a draw-well.” But the gardener, who was something of a philosopher, answered: “I have heard my teacher say: ‘If a man uses machines, he carries on all the affairs of life like a machine; whoever [pg 273] carries on his affairs like a machine gets a machine-like heart; and when anyone has a machine-like heart in his breast, he loses true simplicity.’”