Inhibitions fall away and the mere after-effect
of each stimulus secures a great saving for the new impulse. The
history of the machine even indicates that the newer technical
development not only found the far-reaching division of labor already
in the workshops of earlier centuries, but a no less far-reaching
rhythmization of the labor in fine adaptation to the needs of the
psychophysical organism, long before the appearance of the machines.
The beginnings of the machine period frequently showed nothing but an
imitation of the rhythmical movements of man.[26] To be sure, the
later improvements of the machine have frequently destroyed that
original rhythm of man's movement, as the movement itself, especially
in the electric machines, has become so quick that the subjective
rhythmical experience has been lost. Moreover, the rhythmical
horizontal and vertical movements were for physical reasons usually
replaced by uniform circular movements. But even the most highly
developed machine demands human activity, for instance, for the
supplying with material; and this again has opened new possibilities
for the adjustment of technical mechanism to the economic demand for
rhythmical muscle activity. The growth of technical devices has thus
been constantly under the control of psychological demands, in spite
of the absence of systematic psychological investigations. But the
decisive factor was, indeed, that these psychological motives always
remained in the subconsciousness of civilization.
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