thinking irresistibly into its own realm. Thereby man found himself,
with a consciousness completely blind to dynamics, within a sphere of
only too real dynamic forces. The following description will show what
results this has had for man and his civilization.

*

First, let us recall how potent a role electricity has come to play in
social life through the great discoveries which began at the end of the
eighteenth century. To do this we need only compare the present
relationship between production and consumption in the economic sphere
with what it was before the power-machine, and especially the
electrically driven machine, had been invented. Consider some major
public undertaking in former times - say the construction of a great
mediaeval cathedral. Almost all the work was done by human beings, with
some help, of course, from domesticated animals. Under these
circumstances the entire source of productive power lay in the
will-energies of living beings, whose bodies had to be supplied with
food, clothing and housing; and to provide these, other productive
powers of a similar kind were required near the same place.
Accordingly, since each of the power units employed in the work was
simultaneously both producer and consumer, a certain natural limit was
placed on the accumulation of productive forces in any one locality.

This condition of natural balance between production and consumption
was profoundly disturbed by the introduction of the steam engine; but
even so there were still some limits, though of a quite different kind,
to local concentrations of productive power. For steam engines require
water and coal at the scene of action, and these take up space and need
continual shifting and replenishing. Owing to the very nature of