Profit was therefore no devouring ogre, as some would have us believe, nor was it just the regulator or controller of costs. Men, in seeking to make a profit—and correspondingly to avoid a loss—were ever on the alert to create new devices and new products. If one of these turned out to be useful, or desirable, and if its price proved reasonable, then the device would come into general use and its production and use would become profitable for both its creator and its user, to say nothing of the workmen who manufactured it. If, however, the device or idea failed to measure up to the customer’s expectations, or failed to satisfy his tastes, then it would just fade out; nature, it appeared, was highly selective. She believed in enterprise. When natural law was permitted to function according to principle, corrective forces maintained a degree of equilibrium. To each action there was an opposite and equal reaction and the action contained the germ of the reaction, to the end that the pendulum could not swing too far. It was only when man-made law began hampering natural law that the violent swings took place. No man could understand the workings of the natural law well enough to anticipate the future nor, were he able to do so, could he control the future. Least of all did he have wisdom enough to incorporate the germ of a corrective action in his plans. As I studied this matter of profit and business cycles, I began to get hold of a truth that seemed to be the answer to a lot of questions about the place of the machine in the economy. Men were beginning to argue that labor-saving machinery would bring about technological unemployment, and as the world-wide depression deepened, the facts seemed to confirm the opinion. However, there was another side to this coin: in a technological age when some engineers were engrossed with the task of cutting costs with machinery, other engineers were busy creating new devices to sell. And when these new devices clicked, they called for the creation of new enterprises, the employment of new money—even the creation of new wealth—and best of all the creation of new jobs for workmen. The automotive industry was one of many brilliant examples of this fact. Now no man or group of men could possibly have enough wisdom to control the operations of this law. The free play of natural forces was the only intelligent controller. Like the slipstream of an airplane, this process might appear to be turbulent and wasteful, but again, like the slipstream, it was one of the most efficient processes in nature. The best men could do was try to maintain a healthy climate in which the process could flourish, and since the key lay in the incentive for the human spirit, men’s chief contribution must come out of faith in the natural process.