Chapter IX: Part THREE: The Machines as Poets

I. II. Machinery has poetry in it because it expresses the soul of man--of a whole world of men.

It has poetry in it because it expresses the individual soul of the individual man who creates the Machine--the inventor, and the man who lives with the machine--the engineer.

It has poetry in it because it expresses God. He is the kind of God who can make men who can make machines.

III. IV. Machinery has poetry in it because in expressing the man's soul it expresses the greatest idea that the soul of man can have--the man's sense of being related to the Infinite. It has poetry in it not merely because it makes the man think he is infinite but because it is making the man as infinite as he thinks he is. When I hear the machines, I hear Man saying, "God and I."

V. Machinery has poetry in it because in expressing the infinity of man it expresses the two great immeasurable ideas of poetry and of the imagination and of the soul in all ages--the two forms of infinity--the liberty and the unity of man.

The substance of a beautiful thing is its Idea.

A beautiful thing is beautiful in proportion as its form reveals the nature of its substance, that is, conveys its idea.

Machinery is beautiful by reason of immeasurable ideas consummately expressed.