The sufferings and feelings
of individuals did not matter in the least. They were mere conditions,
like the weather. What mattered was the pure instrumentality of the
individual. As a man as of a knife: does it cut well? Nothing else
mattered.
Everything in the world has its function, and is good or not good in so
far as it fulfils this function more or less perfectly. Was a miner a
good miner? Then he was complete. Was a manager a good manager? That
was enough. Gerald himself, who was responsible for all this industry,
was he a good director? If he were, he had fulfilled his life. The rest
was by-play.
The mines were there, they were old. They were giving out, it did not
pay to work the seams. There was talk of closing down two of them. It
was at this point that Gerald arrived on the scene.
He looked around. There lay the mines. They were old, obsolete. They
were like old lions, no more good. He looked again. Pah! the mines were
nothing but the clumsy efforts of impure minds. There they lay,
abortions of a half-trained mind.
Pages:
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465