[79] LECTURE IX--Oct. 27, 1955 Technology^a will be with us today not only in theory but also in practice! Mr. Eisenstein* [of "Life" Magazine] will continue following us! At the end of the last lecture, I mentioned briefly that the technical realm is that realm in which the idea of progress^b has, so to speak, its roots and its full application, because the technical object is completely rational, determined by end and means only. Therefore, in an endless progress, always better means can be used for given ends. And that's what makes progress a meaningful reality in the technical realm. An oldfashioned [sic.] car is a piece for a museum, but it cannot be used any more, and if it is used, then it brings the museum on the street. And so is an oldfashioned [sic.] dress, or any instrument, any tool, which is overcome by better forms of means for given ends. Then I said that the imperialism of any principle, after it has been conceived, has driven the modern mind to use the idea of progress which originates in the technical realm, for all other realms too, so that it became one of the highest objects of creed. an expression of ultimate concern, as much, at LEAST, as at the same time the idea of God^c also. I gave you an example of people for whom, at least professionally, the idea of God should be the expression of their ultimate concern, were not very much shocked when somebody attacked the idea of God, but tremendously shocked in the moment in which I criticized the idea of progress. Now this is a very interesting phenomenon of our period, and a phenomenon about which we have to think. After the lecture last Tuesday, I have been asked whether there are not other roots of the concept of progress beside the technical realm. And I can answer this question--it belongs directly to our subject--and I am glad to go a little more into it than perhaps the merely technical problem demands. There is another reason, a very fundamental reason, for the idea of progress^d, namely the consciousness of every action, accompanying every action. When you act, you act in the direction towards an end, and you use means in order to reach this end. And if you do so, you have the consciousness *I.e., Alfred Eisenstadt--Ed.