The Humble Bee and the Clover

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. … These little creatures are part of our own reproductive system; then why not we part of that of the machines?

Erewhon (1872) by Samuel Butler

Get the book at Bookshop.org Supports independent bookstores. We earn a small commission.

Context: The treatise answers the objection that machines cannot reproduce.

Not in a duel yet

Source: Chapter XXIV: The Machines—continued

More from Erewhon

He is such a hive and swarm of parasites that it is doubtful whether his body is not more theirs than his, and whether he is anything but another kind of ant-heap after all. May not man himself…

A Machine-Tickling AphidNot rated yet

Are we not ourselves creating our successors in the supremacy of the earth? daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their organisation, daily giving them greater skill and supplying more and more…

Creating Our SuccessorsNot rated yet

There is no security … against the ultimate development of mechanical consciousness, in the fact of machines possessing little consciousness now. A mollusc has not much consciousness. Reflect upon…

No Security Against Machine ConsciousnessNot rated yet

It is all very well for you to say that you came of unhealthy parents, and had a severe accident in your childhood which permanently undermined your constitution; excuses such as these are the…

The Ordinary Refuge of the CriminalThe judgeNot rated yet

But who can say that the vapour engine has not a kind of consciousness? Where does consciousness begin, and where end? Who can draw the line? Who can draw any line? Is not everything interwoven with…

Who Can Draw the LineNot rated yet