O.M. Yes. Man the machine--man the impersonal engine. Whatsoever a man
is, is due to his MAKE, and to the INFLUENCES brought to bear upon it by
his heredities, his habitat, his associations. He is moved, directed,
COMMANDED, by EXTERIOR influences--SOLELY. He ORIGINATES nothing, not
even a thought.

Y.M. Oh, come! Where did I get my opinion that this which you are
talking is all foolishness?

O.M. It is a quite natural opinion--indeed an inevitable opinion--but
YOU did not create the materials out of which it is formed. They are
odds and ends of thoughts, impressions, feelings, gathered unconsciously
from a thousand books, a thousand conversations, and from streams of
thought and feeling which have flowed down into your heart and brain out
of the hearts and brains of centuries of ancestors. PERSONALLY you did
not create even the smallest microscopic fragment of the materials out of
which your opinion is made; and personally you cannot claim even the
slender merit of PUTTING THE BORROWED MATERIALS TOGETHER. That was done
AUTOMATICALLY--by your mental machinery, in strict accordance with the
law of that machinery's construction. And you not only did not make that
machinery yourself, but you have NOT EVEN ANY COMMAND OVER IT.

Y.M. This is too much. You think I could have formed no opinion but
that one?

O.M. Spontaneously? No. And YOU DID NOT FORM THAT ONE; your machinery
did it for you--automatically and instantly, without reflection or the
need of it.