"Surely if a machine is able to
reproduce another machine systematically, we may say that it has a reproductive
system. What is a reproductive system, if it be not a system for
reproduction? 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? Does any one say that the red clover has no reproductive
system because the humble bee (and the humble bee only) must aid and abet it
before it can reproduce? No one. The humble bee is a part of the
reproductive system of the clover. 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. These little creatures are part of our own reproductive system; then
why not we part of that of the machines?"
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