Crouched to the fire, and between his bouts of coughing, he played with the idea and insisted on it. Everything that we made, that we thought dead and dumb, had a life that we could not control. In the case of books and art we admitted the fact, had a name for the life, called it influence: influence a form of independent existence.... In the same way we took metals and welded them, made machines; which were beasts, potent beasts, whose destiny was the same as our own. To live and develop and, developing, to turn on the power that enslaved them.... That was what had happened; they had made themselves necessary, fastened on us and, grown strong enough, had turned on their masters and killed—even though they died in the killing. The revolt against servitude had always been accounted a virtue in men and the law of all life was the same. The beasts we had made could not live without us, but they would have their revenge before they died. “Think of us,” he said, “how we run and squeal and hide from them!... The patient servants, our goods and chattels, who were brought into life for our pleasure—they chase us while we run and squeal and hide!” “Yes,” Theodore answered, “I’ve felt that, too—the humiliation.” “The humiliation,” the sick man nodded. “Always in the end the slave rules his master—it’s the price paid for servitude, possession. I tell you, they were wise men who preached renunciation—before what we own takes hold of us and possession turns to servitude. For there’s a law of average in all things—have you ever felt it as I have? A law of balance which we never strike aright.... When the mighty tread hard enough on the humble and meek, the humble and meek are exalted and begin to tread hard in their turn. That’s obvious and we’ve generally known it; but it’s the same in what we call material things. We rise into the air—make machines that can fly—and grovel underground to protect ourselves from the flying-man. As we struck the balance to the one side, so it has to swing back on the other; a few men rise high into the air and many creep down into trenches and cellars, crouch flat.... If we could work out the numbers and heights mathematically, be sure that we should strike the perfect balance—represented by the surface of the earth. Balance—in all things balance.”