human_reproduction.txt

human_reproduction.txt
Source:	lit_arch
Date:	1872 CE
Area:	Tower

human_reproduction.txt is a text document stored in terminal Floor 1 in Tower.

Contents

Surely if a machine is able to reproduce another machine systematically, we may say that it has a reproductive system. [ARCHIVE: 1872CE-F553] And how few of the machines are there which have not been produced systematically by other machines? But it is man that makes them do so. Yes; but is it not insects that make many of the plants reproductive, and would not whole families of plants die out if their fertilisation was not effected by a class of agents utterly foreign to themselves? Each one of ourselves has sprung from minute animalcules whose entity was entirely distinct from our own, and which acted after their kind with no thought or heed of what we might think about it. /BU%E& These little creatures are part of our own reproductive system; then why not we part of that of the machines?

Notes

• The text originates from Chapter 24 of the 1872 book Erewhon by English writer Samuel Butler, which itself originated from the article "Darwin among the Machines", published in 1863.