Walden

Answers

• Q25DEPENDENCE

  Does relying on machinery for ordinary necessities reduce people's ability to provide for themselves?

  Yes. reliance on contrivances erodes self-provision. Says people who once fed and sheltered themselves directly have become dependent on the tools and property they built, so that 'men have become the tools of their tools.'

  The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages imply this advantage at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain tops. But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of _agri_-culture. We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man’s struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten.

  Chapter 1, "Economy" · Gutenberg #205 full text; phrase found in 'Economy' chapter.

• Q38EXTENSION

  When a person accomplishes something through a machine, should the machine's power count as that person's capability?

  No. Thoreau contrasts a mobile, self-providing life with settled dependence and says that people have become the tools of their tools. The passage addresses dependence more directly than attribution of technical capability.

  The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages imply this advantage at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain tops. But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of _agri_-culture. We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man’s struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten.

  Economy · Quote Investigator and Digital Thoreau text of 'Economy'.