Industry is not accidental but constitutes an event that can entail the most far-reaching spiritual consequences.
Supposing we divide the world into two parts—on the one side, matter which has no roots in mass consciousness, and on the other side the living being. Would we not be justified then in saying, “But—interiority, the rudiment of consciousness, exists everywhere; it is only that if the particle is extremely simple, the consciousness is so small that we cannot perceive it; if there is an increase in complexity, this consciousness comes out into the open and we have the world of life?”
Consciousness properly so-called is the property specific to very large complexes; it is a result of them.
From the sociological point of view, mankind is not an aggregation, but forms a structural whole.
Man is a being characterized by hands and a brain: he is a cerebro-manual—and cannot we recognize this character of cerebrality and manuality in global mankind?
Is not something, itself analogous to a brain, being produced within the totality of human brains? When we think about means of communication, we notice most of all their commercial side; but the psychological side is much more important, and brings with it far-reaching effects.
We would be mistaken in regarding the totality of human brains as forming no more than an added sum. There is something more: these united brains build up a sort of dome, from which each brain can see, with the assistance of the others, what would escape it if it had to rely solely on its own field of vision. The view so obtained goes beyond anything the individual can compass, nor can he exhaust it.
Technology has a role that is biological in the strict sense of the word: it has every right to be included in the scheme of nature. From this point of view, which agrees with that of Bergson, there ceases to be any distinction between the artificial and the natural, between technology and life, since all organisms are the result of invention; if there is any difference, the advantage is on the side of the artificial.
Has man reached his ceiling? What about the future? It is here that we meet the vast phenomenon of the almost unlimited power of disposition over matter that man is beginning to acquire in his environment.
Every pair of hands freed means a brain freed for thought.
If, through technology, evolution is making a fresh bound, at the same time it is becoming reflective. Huxley has said that man is evolution become conscious of itself. Evolution has now to make its own choice. So long as true freedom did not exist life seemed to grope its way forward; now that man has become conscious, reflective, and responsible for dispositions on which the rest of the process is based, a direction must be found: life can no longer proceed at random—technology brings with it the inescapable necessity of an ideology.