Most people do not understand how greatly thought influences mankind. Here I want to make a distinction between thinking and thought. The resultant of many acts of thinking becomes the general program called thought, which can be stored in a library or computer or in one’s own brain and then consulted later. Once a thought has been made into a program in that way, you do not have to think it again: you have it in storage. Now, this is a great labor-saving device—all that we see around us as civilization and technology is the result of the thought of past centuries, which we do not have to repeat—but it is also dangerous. If we do not have to think again, if we can just consult old thoughts, then we may become mechanical.
