The Masses
adding and altering. We are devoid of this kind of craftsman's pleasure; we do what is necessary, only because it is necessary. And as a man, engaged happily in such pleasant, childlike pursuits, resents the chilling indifference of an unsympathetic onlooker, so your world resents our uncalled-for analysis of your acts and occupations. This is your life and you enjoy it. Why do we disturb you with questions concerning ultimate values?
We lack inventiveness. You will say that this springs from our lack of vitality. Men are lyrical because life sings in them; they are inventive because life is restless in them and drives their fingers to activity. I will not argue the cause of the difference, but, lacking inventiveness, we also lack sympathy for it. In your delight you call inventiveness the conquest of nature. But the boast is, to us, a foolish and a childlike boast. The problem with which man is faced cannot be answered by scientific inventions. The conquest of nature does not lie in evolving keener
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