[85] This gives to the machine a relative independence from the human body. And this independence produces what I would call a new technical Gestalt^a (according to the Gestalt-psychological terminology)--or, if you don’t want this German word, then) "independent structure," or "entity," as someone has suggested calling it. The machine^b becomes a partly independent entity. And I have experiences in which people who SERVE a complicated machine, [say] "Look at 'her"'! --and I say "her" intentionally, as a kind of personfied [sic.] reality, which has irrational forms of behavior (as those whom we call "her" sometimes have!) [laughter]: admirable in their greatness, and often uncanny [smiling] and to be feared, [lest] sometimes they may break out and destroy everything around them. [smiling; laughter] I spoke now about the MACHINE! [laughter]. The consequence of this independence of the machine, of vital movements, is that the machine embodies infinite possibilities of infinite progress--infinite in the sense of not definable. And this is not the case with the tool we have in our hands: it is limited by our bodily possibilities. But that which is an independent tool--the machine-- is the principle of all progress, and has produced this fundamental human feeling in the last few hundred years, about human progress. Now what I gave you up to now is the logical nature of technology^c, its creative possibilities in the whole of our existence. But now let us look to its relationship to other creative acts of mankind. The first is the relation of technology and science^d, discussed only from the side of technology--the next lecture will then come to religion and science and go deeper into this relationship. One can say already that the technical creation is the great, ever-active verifying confirmation of scientific assumptions. The absolute certainty which we have about the fundamental scientific assumptions about our world, is based on the fact that they are technical verified, in every moment. The fact that we have light here in this room, artificial light, and that this works, is a verification for innumerable laws discovered by scientists and verified in every moment of our life by technical forms. On the other hand, the technique gives a continuous impulse for research for science. So the relation- ship is double-sided: it confirms and it drives sciences. But all this is done in a limited realm of abstraction. And this leads us