[76] used form--if we use the term "technique," [as] we think of it usually--the most perfect expression of it is the machine. When we speak of the relationship of religion and the technical realm, we mostly think of the machine and its consequences for the spiritual life. In this kind of technical activity, there is a material used which is not foreign to the end for which it is used. Trees have their life in themselves. If they are used for chairs, this use is foreign to them. Metals grow in nature; they are used for innumerable tools. Chemicals are drawn from plants, but they now serve other purposes. That means: here a reality is created which is completely determined by its purpose, and by nothing else, except the purpose. If a machine does not fulfill its purpose any more, it becomes old iron, and is thrown away. A condemned house is a rubble or an aesthetically interesting ruin, but it is not a house any more. The means-character, the tool-character, has disappeared. Technical creations, for this very reason, are completely subjected to the principle of rationality^a. Here is one of the reasons for the fear ail romanticism has of the technical realm: because of its total rationality. The rationality is expressed first in the inner adequacy of the technical to its purpose, the transition of all superfluous elements in it and (I come to this later), the inner beauty of this complete adequacy, complete exclusion of that which does not belong to it. Any deviation from this principle of rationality, any trimming in order to beautify it, is actually the deprivation of its real beauty. The only beauty the complete technical product has, is its complete rationality. From this follows that the product is CONTROLLED by man--the rational control of the technical products. This again is possible only because there is a complete subjection to the natural laws. This is a very interesting correlation: man who controls the technical product completely can control it only if he subjects himself completely to the natural laws which he uses in order to create the technical product. In the moment in which he deviates from them, not only is ugliness the consequence, but also destruction. Now when I speak of complete rationality^b, please don't make a mistake: I don't speak here of the rationality of invention. The greatest technical inventions have