'This road ought to be as smooth as velvet. That hill in front is
ridiculous, and the descent on the other side positively dangerous. And
it's all turns--I can't see a hundred yards in front.' He has a wild
idea of trying to force the County Council to sand-paper the road, or of
employing the new Territorial Army to remove the hill. But he dismisses
that idea--he is so reasonable. He accepts all. He sits clothed in
reasonableness on the machine, and accepts all. 'Ass!' you exclaim. 'Why
doesn't he get down and inflate that tyre, for one thing? Anyone can see
the sparking apparatus is wrong, and it's perfectly certain the gear-box
wants oil.

Why doesn't he--?' I will tell you why he doesn't. Just because he isn't
aware that he is on a machine at all. He has never examined what he is
on. And at the back of his consciousness is a dim idea that he is
perched on a piece of solid, immutable rock that runs on castors.




II

AMATEURS IN THE ART OF LIVING


Considering that we have to spend the whole of our lives in this human
machine, considering that it is our sole means of contact and compromise
with the rest of the world, we really do devote to it very little
attention. When I say 'we,' I mean our inmost spirits, the instinctive
part, the mystery within that exists. And when I say 'the human machine'
I mean the brain and the body--and chiefly the brain. The expression of