Can Such Things Be? By Ambrose Bierce
MOXON’S MASTER
“Are you serious? - do you really believe that a machine
thinks?”
I got no immediate reply; Moxon was apparently intent upon the
coals in the grate, touching them deftly here and there with the
fire-poker till they signified a sense of his attention by a
brighter glow. For several weeks I had been observing in him a
growing habit of delay in answering even the most trivial of
commonplace questions. His air, however, was that of
preoccupation rather than deliberation: one might have said that
he had “something on his mind.”
Presently he said:
“What is a ‘machine’? The word has been
variously defined. Here is one definition from a popular
dictionary: ‘Any instrument or organization by which power
is applied and made effective, or a desired effect
produced.’ Well, then, is not a man a machine? And you
will admit that he thinks - or thinks he thinks.”
“If you do not wish to answer my question,” I said,
rather testily, “why not say so? - all that you say is mere
evasion. You know well enough that when I say
‘machine’ I do not mean a man, but something that man
has made and controls.”
“When it does not control him,” he said, rising
abruptly and looking out of a window, whence nothing was visible
in the blackness of a stormy night. A moment later he turned
about and with a smile said: “I beg your pardon; I had no
thought of evasion. I considered the dictionary man’s
unconscious testimony suggestive and worth something in the
discussion. I can give your question a direct answer easily
enough: I do believe that a machine thinks about the work that it
is doing.”
That was direct enough, certainly. It was not altogether
pleasing, for it tended to confirm a sad suspicion that
Moxon’s devotion to study and work in his machine-shop had
not been good for him. I knew, for one thing, that he suffered
from insomnia, and that is no light affliction. Had it affected
his mind? His reply to my question seemed to me then evidence
that it had; perhaps I should think differently about it now. I
was younger then, and among the blessings that are not denied to
youth is ignorance. Incited by that great stimulant to
controversy, I said:
“And what, pray, does it think with - in the absence of a
brain?”
The reply, coming with less than his customary delay, took his
favorite form of counter-interrogation:
“With what does a plant think - in the absence of a
brain?”
“Ah, plants also belong to the philosopher class! I should
be pleased to know some of their conclusions; you may omit the
premises.”
“Perhaps,” he replied, apparently unaffected by my
foolish irony, “you may be able to infer their convictions
from their acts. I will spare you the familiar examples of the
sensitive mimosa, the several insectivorous flowers and those
whose stamens bend down and shake their pollen upon the entering
bee in order that he may fertilize their distant mates. But
observe this. In an open spot in my garden I planted a climbing
vine. When it was barely above the surface I set a stake into
the soil a yard away. The vine at once made for it, but as it
was about to reach it after several days I removed it a few
feet. The vine at once altered its course, making an acute
angle, and again made for the stake. This manoeuvre was repeated
several times, but finally, as if discouraged, the vine abandoned
the pursuit and ignoring further attempts to divert it traveled
to a small tree, further away, which it climbed.
“Roots of the eucalyptus will prolong themselves incredibly
in search of moisture. A well-known horticulturist relates that
one entered an old drain pipe and followed it until it came to a
break, where a section of the pipe had been removed to make way
for a stone wall that had been built across its course. The root
left the drain and followed the wall until it found an opening
where a stone had fallen out. It crept through and following the
other side of the wall back to the drain, entered the unexplored
part and resumed its journey.”
“And all this?”
“Can you miss the significance of it? It shows the
consciousness of plants. It proves that they think.”
“Even if it did - what then? We were speaking, not of
plants, but of machines. They may be composed partly of wood -
wood that has no longer vitality - or wholly of metal. Is
thought an attribute also of the mineral kingdom?”
“How else do you explain the phenomena, for example, of
crystallization?”
“I do not explain them.”
“Because you cannot without affirming what you wish to
deny, namely, intelligent cooperation among the constituent
elements of the crystals. When soldiers form lines, or hollow
squares, you call it reason. When wild geese in flight take the
form of a letter V you say instinct. When the homogeneous atoms
of a mineral, moving freely in solution, arrange themselves into
shapes mathematically perfect, or particles of frozen moisture
into the symmetrical and beautiful forms of snowflakes, you have
nothing to say. You have not even invented a name to conceal
your heroic unreason.”
Moxon was speaking with unusual animation and earnestness. As he
paused I heard in an adjoining room known to me as his
“machine-shop,” which no one but himself was
permitted to enter, a singular thumping sound, as of some one
pounding upon a table with an open hand. Moxon heard it at the
same moment and, visibly agitated, rose and hurriedly passed into
the room whence it came. I thought it odd that any one else
should be in there, and my interest in my friend - with doubtless
a touch of unwarrantable curiosity - led me to listen intently,
though, I am happy to say, not at the keyhole. There were
confused sounds, as of a struggle or scuffle; the floor shook. I
distinctly heard hard breathing and a hoarse whisper which said
“Damn you!” Then all was silent, and presently Moxon
reappeared and said, with a rather sorry smile:
“Pardon me for leaving you so abruptly. I have a machine
in there that lost its temper and cut up rough.”
Fixing my eyes steadily upon his left cheek, which was traversed
by four parallel excoriations showing blood, I said:
“How would it do to trim its nails?”
I could have spared myself the jest; he gave it no attention, but
seated himself in the chair that he had left and resumed the
interrupted monologue as if nothing had occurred:
“Doubtless you do not hold with those (I need not name them
to a man of your reading) who have taught that all matter is
sentient, that every atom is a living, feeling, conscious being.
I do. There is no such thing as dead, inert matter: it is
all alive; all instinct with force, actual and potential; all
sensitive to the same forces in its environment and susceptible
to the contagion of higher and subtler ones residing in such
superior organisms as it may be brought into relation with, as
those of man when he is fashioning it into an instrument of his
will. It absorbs something of his intelligence and purpose -
more of them in proportion to the complexity of the resulting
machine and that of its work.
“Do you happen to recall Herbert Spencer’s definition
of ‘Life’? I read it thirty years ago. He may have
altered it afterward, for anything I know, but in all that time I
have been unable to think of a single word that could profitably
be changed or added or removed. It seems to me not only the best
definition, but the only possible one.
“‘Life,’ he says, ‘is a definite
combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and
successive, in correspondence with external coexistences and
sequences.’”
“That defines the phenomenon,” I said, “but
gives no hint of its cause.”
“That,” he replied, “is all that any definition
can do. As Mill points out, we know nothing of cause except as
an antecedent - nothing of effect except as a consequent. Of
certain phenomena, one never occurs without another, which is
dissimilar: the first in point of time we call cause, the second,
effect. One who had many times seen a rabbit pursued by a dog,
and had never seen rabbits and dogs otherwise, would think the
rabbit the cause of the dog.
“But I fear,” he added, laughing naturally enough,
“that my rabbit is leading me a long way from the track of
my legitimate quarry: I’m indulging in the pleasure of the
chase for its own sake. What I want you to observe is that in
Herbert Spencer’s definition of ‘life’ the
activity of a machine is included - there is nothing in the
definition that is not applicable to it. According to this
sharpest of observers and deepest of thinkers, if a man during
his period of activity is alive, so is a machine when in
operation. As an inventor and constructor of machines I know
that to be true.”
Moxon was silent for a long time, gazing absently into the fire.
It was growing late and I thought it time to be going, but
somehow I did not like the notion of leaving him in that isolated
house, all alone except for the presence of some person of whose
nature my conjectures could go no further than that it was
unfriendly, perhaps malign. Leaning toward him and looking
earnestly into his eyes while making a motion with my hand
through the door of his workshop, I said:
“Moxon, whom have you in there?”
Somewhat to my surprise he laughed lightly and answered without
hesitation:
“Nobody; the incident that you have in mind was caused by
my folly in leaving a machine in action with nothing to act upon,
while I undertook the interminable task of enlightening your
understanding. Do you happen to know that Consciousness is the
creature of Rhythm?”
“O bother them both!” I replied, rising and laying
hold of my overcoat. “I’m going to wish you good
night; and I’ll add the hope that the machine which you
inadvertently left in action will have her gloves on the next
time you think it needful to stop her.”
Without waiting to observe the effect of my shot I left the
house.
Rain was falling, and the darkness was intense. In the sky
beyond the crest of a hill toward which I groped my way along
precarious plank sidewalks and across miry, unpaved streets I
could see the faint glow of the city’s lights, but behind
me nothing was visible but a single window of Moxon’s
house. It glowed with what seemed to me a mysterious and fateful
meaning. I knew it was an uncurtained aperture in my
friend’s “machine-shop,” and I had little doubt
that he had resumed the studies interrupted by his duties as my
instructor in mechanical consciousness and the fatherhood of
Rhythm. Odd, and in some degree humorous, as his convictions
seemed to me at that time, I could not wholly divest myself of
the feeling that they had some tragic relation to his life and
character - perhaps to his destiny - although I no longer
entertained the notion that they were the vagaries of a
disordered mind. Whatever might be thought of his views, his
exposition of them was too logical for that. Over and over, his
last words came back to me: “Consciousness is the creature
of Rhythm.” Bald and terse as the statement was, I now
found it infinitely alluring. At each recurrence it broadened in
meaning and deepened in suggestion. Why, here, (I thought) is
something upon which to found a philosophy. If consciousness is
the product of rhythm all things are conscious, for all
have motion, and all motion is rhythmic. I wondered if Moxon
knew the significance and breadth of his thought - the scope of
this momentous generalization; or had he arrived at his
philosophic faith by the tortuous and uncertain road of
observation?
That faith was then new to me, and all Moxon’s expounding
had failed to make me a convert; but now it seemed as if a great
light shone about me, like that which fell upon Saul of Tarsus;
and out there in the storm and darkness and solitude I
experienced what Lewes calls “The endless variety and
excitement of philosophic thought.” I exulted in a new
sense of knowledge, a new pride of reason. My feet seemed hardly
to touch the earth; it was as if I were uplifted and borne
through the air by invisible wings.
Yielding to an impulse to seek further light from him whom I now
recognized as my master and guide, I had unconsciously turned
about, and almost before I was aware of having done so found
myself again at Moxon’s door. I was drenched with rain,
but felt no discomfort. Unable in my excitement to find the
doorbell I instinctively tried the knob. It turned and,
entering, I mounted the stairs to the room that I had so recently
left. All was dark and silent; Moxon, as I had supposed, was in
the adjoining room - the “machine-shop.” Groping
along the wall until I found the communicating door I knocked
loudly several times, but got no response, which I attributed to
the uproar outside, for the wind was blowing a gale and dashing
the rain against the thin walls in sheets. The drumming upon the
shingle roof spanning the unceiled room was loud and
incessant.
I had never been invited into the machine-shop - had, indeed,
been denied admittance, as had all others, with one exception, a
skilled metal worker, of whom no one knew anything except that
his name was Haley and his habit silence. But in my spiritual
exaltation, discretion and civility were alike forgotten and I
opened the door. What I saw took all philosophical speculation
out of me in short order.
Moxon sat facing me at the farther side of a small table upon
which a single candle made all the light that was in the room.
Opposite him, his back toward me, sat another person. On the
table between the two was a chessboard; the men were playing. I
knew little of chess, but as only a few pieces were on the board
it was obvious that the game was near its close. Moxon was
intensely interested - not so much, it seemed to me, in the game
as in his antagonist, upon whom he had fixed so intent a look
that, standing though I did directly in the line of his vision, I
was altogether unobserved. His face was ghastly white, and his
eyes glittered like diamonds. Of his antagonist I had only a
back view, but that was sufficient; I should not have cared to
see his face.
He was apparently not more than five feet in height, with
proportions suggesting those of a gorilla - a tremendous breadth
of shoulders, thick, short neck and broad, squat head, which had
a tangled growth of black hair and was topped with a crimson
fez. A tunic of the same color, belted tightly to the waist,
reached the seat - apparently a box - upon which he sat; his legs
and feet were not seen. His left forearm appeared to rest in his
lap; he moved his pieces with his right hand, which seemed
disproportionately long.
I had shrunk back and now stood a little to one side of the
doorway and in shadow. If Moxon had looked farther than the face
of his opponent he could have observed nothing now, except that
the door was open. Something forbade me either to enter or to
retire, a feeling - I know not how it came - that I was in the
presence of an imminent tragedy and might serve my friend by
remaining. With a scarcely conscious rebellion against the
indelicacy of the act I remained.
The play was rapid. Moxon hardly glanced at the board before
making his moves, and to my unskilled eye seemed to move the
piece most convenient to his hand, his motions in doing so being
quick, nervous and lacking in precision. The response of his
antagonist, while equally prompt in the inception, was made with
a slow, uniform, mechanical and, I thought, somewhat theatrical
movement of the arm, that was a sore trial to my patience. There
was something unearthly about it all, and I caught myself
shuddering. But I was wet and cold.
Two or three times after moving a piece the stranger slightly
inclined his head, and each time I observed that Moxon shifted
his king. All at once the thought came to me that the man was
dumb. And then that he was a machine - an automaton
chess-player! Then I remembered that Moxon had once spoken to me
of having invented such a piece of mechanism, though I did not
understand that it had actually been constructed. Was all his
talk about the consciousness and intelligence of machines merely
a prelude to eventual exhibition of this device - only a trick to
intensify the effect of its mechanical action upon me in my
ignorance of its secret?
A fine end, this, of all my intellectual transports - my
“endless variety and excitement of philosophic
thought!” I was about to retire in disgust when something
occurred to hold my curiosity. I observed a shrug of the
thing’s great shoulders, as if it were irritated: and so
natural was this - so entirely human - that in my new view of the
matter it startled me. Nor was that all, for a moment later it
struck the table sharply with its clenched hand. At that gesture
Moxon seemed even more startled than I: he pushed his chair a
little backward, as in alarm.
Presently Moxon, whose play it was, raised his hand high above
the board, pounced upon one of his pieces like a sparrow-hawk and
with the exclamation “checkmate!” rose quickly to his
feet and stepped behind his chair. The automaton sat
motionless.
The wind had now gone down, but I heard, at lessening intervals
and progressively louder, the rumble and roll of thunder. In the
pauses between I now became conscious of a low humming or buzzing
which, like the thunder, grew momentarily louder and more
distinct. It seemed to come from the body of the automaton, and
was unmistakably a whirring of wheels. It gave me the impression
of a disordered mechanism which had escaped the repressive and
regulating action of some controlling part - an effect such as
might be expected if a pawl should be jostled from the teeth of a
ratchet-wheel. But before I had time for much conjecture as to
its nature my attention was taken by the strange motions of the
automaton itself. A slight but continuous convulsion appeared to
have possession of it. In body and head it shook like a man with
palsy or an ague chill, and the motion augmented every moment
until the entire figure was in violent agitation. Suddenly it
sprang to its feet and with a movement almost too quick for the
eye to follow shot forward across table and chair, with both arms
thrust forth to their full length - the posture and lunge of a
diver. Moxon tried to throw himself backward out of reach, but
he was too late: I saw the horrible thing’s hands close
upon his throat, his own clutch its wrists. Then the table was
overturned, the candle thrown to the floor and extinguished, and
all was black dark. But the noise of the struggle was dreadfully
distinct, and most terrible of all were the raucous, squawking
sounds made by the strangled man’s efforts to breathe.
Guided by the infernal hubbub, I sprang to the rescue of my
friend, but had hardly taken a stride in the darkness when the
whole room blazed with a blinding white light that burned into my
brain and heart and memory a vivid picture of the combatants on
the floor, Moxon underneath, his throat still in the clutch of
those iron hands, his head forced backward, his eyes protruding,
his mouth wide open and his tongue thrust out; and - horrible
contrast! - upon the painted face of his assassin an expression
of tranquil and profound thought, as in the solution of a problem
in chess! This I observed, then all was blackness and
silence.
Three days later I recovered consciousness in a hospital. As the
memory of that tragic night slowly evolved in my ailing brain
recognized in my attendant Moxon’s confidential workman,
Haley. Responding to a look he approached, smiling.
“Tell me about it,” I managed to say, faintly -
“all about it.”
“Certainly,” he said; “you were carried
unconscious from a burning house - Moxon’s. Nobody knows
how you came to be there. You may have to do a little
explaining. The origin of the fire is a bit mysterious, too. My
own notion is that the house was struck by
lightning.”
“And Moxon?”
“Buried yesterday - what was left of him.”
Apparently this reticent person could unfold himself on
occasion. When imparting shocking intelligence to the sick he
was affable enough. After some moments of the keenest mental
suffering I ventured to ask another question:
“Who rescued me?”
“Well, if that interests you - I did.”
“Thank you, Mr. Haley, and may God bless you for it. Did
you rescue, also, that charming product of your skill, the
automaton chess-player that murdered its inventor?”
The man was silent a long time, looking away from me. Presently
he turned and gravely said:
“Do you know that?”
“I do,” I replied; “I saw it done.”
That was many years ago. If asked to-day I should answer less
confidently.