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Culture’s Engine
Inside Science and Technology

William Gosling
Culture’s Engine
 William Gosling

Culture’s Engine
Inside Science and Technology
William Gosling
University of Bath
Bath, UK

ISBN 978-981-15-4591-7    ISBN 978-981-15-4592-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4592-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore
Pte Ltd. 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: © Matej Ograjensek / Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore
Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
 to
Naomi Climer
President 2015–2016
of the
Institution of Engineering and Technology
Her distinguished role is shared
with many great names from the past
but to be the first woman elected
in its one and a half centuries
is to make history
 Acknowledgements

I began writing about technology as a young lecturer at Swansea University

and was honoured when Herbert Simon took an interest in my first book,
encouraging me to continue. He hoped for an objective ‘design science’.
It seems an impossible dream now, but my gratitude to him remains.
Towards the end of the last century, David Gooding, historian and
philosopher of science, encouraged me to present a radical view of tech-
nology in a Masters’ degree programme at the University of Bath. Over
several years the talented students on the course tested and enlightened
me. They have my heartfelt gratitude.
I had come to feel that there was a place for a study of technology
‘from the inside’, looking at its distinctive way of working. At Bath, it was
fortunate that I also encountered Helen Haste, an innovative and inspir-
ing psychologist. She understood what I would be attempting in the
book I had begun to plan and suggested how it might be better done. Her
support helped me greatly, even after her move to Harvard, and despite
her heavy commitments there.
At that time many well-informed people were unable to make a con-
sistent distinction between science and technology, though in truth the
two are as different as can be. Their goals and objectives are quite diverse,
as therefore also their criteria of success. They identify their problems in
distinctive ways and set about solving them differently. The much-­
debated scientific method is certainly not like the doxastic method used
vii
viii Acknowledgements

by engineers, medical clinicians and other technologists, but of this more

later. Also maybe writing about technology ought not to emulate sci-
ence’s style too closely, but be more human and personal, as is its subject.
Half of my working life has been spent in academia, half in industry.
My years as Technical Director of the Plessey Company greatly extended
the range of technologies within my personal experience. Michael Clark,
as Deputy Chairman, helped me find my feet in an unfamiliar Board
Room environment and was always a source of wise advice and support.
I miss him greatly.
I also thank friends and colleagues with whom I exchanged views,
greatly benefiting from their thoughts. David Aspinall, Kenneth Grange,
Edmund Happold, Sam Jordison, Vivian Phillips and Keith Warren all
gave me valued advice at crucial points in the development of my ideas.
Above all, from the moment I began to research for this book, Patricia
Gosling contributed a psychoanalyst’s valued insights to my quest, both
informative and challenging. It gave my thinking irreplaceable depth.
Many puzzling features of technology as practiced can be understood
only in terms of the distinctive mindset of the practitioners.
My doctorate is in communications engineering, but to establish my
argument I have written on history, archaeology, psychology and other
disciplines in which I am just a layman. Experts in these fields will doubt-
less be so kind as to point out my errors. I thank them in advance, but am
unabashed by my shortcomings; somebody had to do it.
 Contents

1 Introduction  1

2 The Odd Couple  5

3 Why Are Humans Different? 17

4 Three Flavours of Technology 25

5 Subtle Subversives 45

6 The Active Elements Appear 53

7 Drivers of Technology 61

8 Technology’s Other Half 67

9 Talk the Talk 83

10 Patterns of Innovation 95

11 Invention Push and Market Pull109

ix
x Contents

12 Deep Design123

13 A Hazardous Business143

14 Will Anyone Want It?155

15 Failure Foreseen169

16 Can Machines Think?183

17 Lady Lovelace’s Revenge193

18 The Dark Side209

19 Be Careful What You Wish For225

20 Past, Present, Future237

21 Technology and Dreaming245

Appendix: A Clutch of Designers255

Index259
 1
Introduction

In the quarter of a million years or so since humans joined the animal

population on this planet, we have been actively changing our physical
world, and not merely adapting to what we find. We have used technol-
ogy, making endless alterations in the environment to help us flourish. It
began with weapons and sharp-edged tools made from stone. We built
shelters and defences against many threats, cooked our food, made bas-
kets and pots, wove fabrics. Soon animal husbandry, horticulture and
agriculture began; starting independently in several geographical loca-
tions, but widespread by 10,000 BC. So began our unique historical tra-
jectory towards domination of our planet.
It was not a smooth or uniform process: technology never is in a steady
state for long. Since earliest times people have triggered epochs of rapid
innovation in technology, each changing the world. Very early among
these revolutions was the use of domesticated animals. Bees were kept
from 10,000 BC in North Africa, valued for both honey and beeswax.
Horses were important by 4000 BC. Perhaps bred at first for their meat,
horses were quickly seen as an important mechanical energy source, soon
dominating all forms of land transportation.
And so it went on: great and memorable technology revolutions,
one after another from then until now, and our own

© The Author(s) 2020 1

W. Gosling, Culture’s Engine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4592-4_1
2 W. Gosling

revolution—microelectronics on the silicon chip—arguably the most sig-

nificant advance there has ever been. Technology is not static but from its
beginning has been in process of continual development, presenting a
different face to successive human generations. New material worlds
change the patterns and boundaries of thought for those who live in
them. This historical succession of new and different worlds, each giving
rise to distinctive cultural outcomes, is created by the evolution of tech-
nology. Story-telling, fine and popular arts, philosophy, science and the-
ology are immensely precious expressions of the human spirit. However,
they make sense only when seen as responses to the place and time in
which they appear, the unique material culture which is itself technolo-
gy’s consequence in interplay with history.
In no way is this to be seen as technological determinism. What is
going on here is a dialogue, or perhaps a ritual dance. Needs and wishes
expressed in society at large evoke new technology. If it succeeds this
should have the outcomes being sought, but will probably have others,
not foreseen. Many facets of social behaviour and structure will change in
time, to adapt to the new material environment that emerging technol-
ogy has created. This transformed culture will evoke new social demands
which again technology will seek to fulfil. And so it goes, turn and
turnabout.
Technology is never in steady state so neither is our social forms and
institutions. Each responds to the other. Already having brought us dom-
ination of our own planet, this process has not finished yet. We are reach-
ing out to the universe. But technology has a worrying downside too. The
news is not all positive—potential for good and evil have come together.
People fear things to come, and need time to adjust their lives and think-
ing to manage unforeseen consequences of change. We are better able to
do that if we have a broader perspective of what is happening.
To claim an important part for technology in human history is not
controversial. My contention is that through this dialogue successful
technology sets the direction and pace of all cultural evolution. The state
of technology at any time is the major influence on the world, and not
just the material world. Since the earliest times, humanity has lived beset
by occasional revolutions in technology, which, in turn, change the
world, often beyond recognition. This book is not a history of
 1 Introduction 3

technology, still less of science. It questions how technology and social

forces interact, leading to these successive revolutions and their outcome.
The following chapters explore five themes:

• How is technology different from science and what language shall we

use to talk about it?
• How does technology go about its work? What is the doxastic method?
One of the most widespread problem-solving strategies, technology
orchestrates it to symphonic levels.
• What distinctive feature have we in mind when we call an activity
technology? Many animals use tools, but we do not think of that as
technology.
• How are the needs and wants society expresses matched to the con-
temporary potential of technology?
• What characterises its successes and failures? In 1932 DELAG, the
world’s first commercial airline, initiated a regular service direct from
Berlin to Buenos Aires, using an airship. Yet in a few years airplanes
were replacing airships everywhere because they were faster, cheaper
and safer. Was what DELAG did a success or a failure? Perhaps it was
neither—for a time it proved useful, so maybe it was just a precursor.

We are Homo Sapiens Sapiens, the apprentice guardians of Earth. If we

fail in our duty of care for our planet no others will follow. No living
thing here has the potential to displace us, and any sentient extra-­
terrestrials are just too far away. So we need to learn to be competent
guardians of what we have. Our technology creates irreversible social
revolutions. We blunder thoughtlessly into them, acting like children,
innocent of what will follow. But now we are living in a unique epoch of
human history: a great transition has begun. We are building, at absurdly
low cost, general-purpose digital machines of more than biological com-
plexity. Technology has come to childhood’s end, and it is time we took
ownership of our future.
 2
The Odd Couple

It would be absurd to claim that science and technology are not closely
related. Many find it hard to say where one begins and the other ends.
Any activity pursued in laboratories by people with advanced technical
qualifications, using complex measuring instruments, and described in
an arcane language with a lot of mathematics, that is surely science? Not
necessarily, it may be technology. Science and technology may seem to
outsiders like identical twins, yet they are deeply different. This unfamil-
iar idea is difficult even for some scientists and technologists to grasp, yet
poles apart they are. Some people move between the two without diffi-
culty, but they cannot be both at the same time and mostly settle for one
or the other as their temperament inclines them.
Michael Faraday (1791–1867) is a good example.1 Of exceptionally
high intelligence and creativity, he is sometimes called the father of
English electrical engineering. In hope of improving their own standing,
the English electrical utilities, feeling like poor relations compared with
Gas and Water, gave him that title in the thirties of the last century. But
Faraday never was an engineer; he was one of the most distinguished
scientists of his age, and the informal scientific consultant to the British
government. His interests went far beyond electrical topics and he made
contributions to knowledge in many fields. When he built apparatus, like

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W. Gosling, Culture’s Engine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4592-4_2
6 W. Gosling

the early monster electromagnet with which he detected the existence of

diamagnetism, he did so only to resolve experimentally the scientific
issues that fascinated him.
Compare him with technologists like William F. Cooke (1806–1879)2
in England and Samuel B. Morse (1791–1872)3 in the United States,
working at about the same time, whose primary concern was to establish
nation-wide telegraph systems. When they made contributions to knowl-
edge they were relatively minor and always subsidiary to the objective of
building commercially viable telegraphs.
So despite their common ground, can we say what the essential differ-
ences are between science and technology? Technology is older than sci-
ence by at least fifty thousand years. Its extended pre-scientific phase gave
us the early civilisations and much to treasure, from Gothic cathedrals to
using paper for information storage.4 The physicist Freeman Dyson, in an
address to Texas University, said: ‘Technology … is the mother of civilisa-
tions, of arts and of sciences’. So Dyson sees technology’s distinctive
methods coming long before science. It must have done, otherwise Egypt
would have built no Pyramids, nor would the Orkneys have their incred-
ible 5000-year old chambered tombs. All there was of science back then
was a little arithmetic, with some rudimentary geometry and astronomy.
Yet many people still believe technology is somehow the application of
science—impossible, since the first preceded the second by millennia.5
Even today if science is not yet able to offer help, technology still needs,
uses and makes progress at the forward edge of innovation by its own
distinctive methods.
From tens of thousands of years ago, and to this day, innovation in
technology has been achieved by successive trials, each of them con-
strained by trusted opinions—the doxastic method6,7 It can be seen as a
kind of deeply thoughtful trial and error. After every trial comes critical
evaluation of the result, to find out whether it has succeeded or the work
of innovation will have to continue. Those trusted opinions that set
boundaries to the area of trial, and on which its success depends, may
come from past experience, from the views of others believed competent,
examination of historical examples, or any other source of credible, per-
suasive information. When finally science appeared, its persuasive insights
suggested that opinions brought to the doxastic method from that source
 2 The Odd Couple 7

were fit to be trusted. Success came faster and more reliably. Yet the basic
method is a far older way of solving practical problems than science itself,
and indeed is still in everyday and universal use.
Science would like to fathom all the workings of nature and the uni-
verse which are accessible to human understanding, everyone. What is
more, the explanations must be in a convincing, reliable and verifiable
form. The range it addresses is almost unlimited, through physics, chem-
istry, biology and medicine, on to the human sciences. Nothing is beyond
its curious eye, though some might be beyond its comprehension—that
is debated. At depth science seeks to know about things, but does not, as
its primary concern, seek to create anything material, nothing beyond a
trustworthy new and original insight. At times scientists do need to build
radically new equipment, but they do so in order to answer scientific
questions. Once these answers are known what they have built has inter-
est only to historians or technologists.
New equipment or instruments scientists produce in the course of
their investigation may later prove useful to others and be widely repro-
duced, like Galileo’s telescope. It was not the first of its kind: several were
seen in the previous year in Italy. Galileo was in Venice in 1609, where he
picked up the idea. However, his creation of an improved product was
not science, but technology. Indeed, in the mid-eighteenth century two
technologists—the inventor Chester Moore Hall (1703–1771) and the
optical technician John Dollond (1706–1761)—improved Galileo’s tele-
scope, rendering his older version obsolete.
So technologists and scientists do similar things at times, and are of
great assistance to each other, but what they aim at is different. The objec-
tive of scientific research is ideas: new insights into the nature of the
universe. The outcome of technology is new products, processes or ser-
vices, intended, one hopes, to improve the human condition by material
means. Science wants to know; technology wants to create. Science works
towards the great ‘aha’ moment and a published paper, technologists
want to fire it up and see if it flies. When it does they feel a deep craftsman-­
like satisfaction.
Their different objectives give the communities of scientists and tech-
nologists different attitudes to innovation. In science, the priority of the
new idea is greatly honoured, and rightly so, because that is precisely
8 W. Gosling

what is being sought. However in technology advances are not exclusively

concerned with ideas, or new techniques. Some of its most highly
regarded innovators are those, like Dollond, Morse, Marconi and
Armstrong, who were pioneer designers producing early instantiations of
new technology using techniques that had already been introduced.
The starting place for scientific research is realisation that a path exists,
even if long and tortuous, by which new knowledge might be reached.
The perceived possibility of success triggers the scientific endeavour.
Scientists value aesthetically pleasing solutions to their problems. What
constitutes ‘pleasing’ is obscure, but they know it when they see it.8 It is a
close relative to the ‘charm’ factor in design, discussed later. Technology
is different. It begins with a human need or want, which it attempts to
satisfy, and thus proceeds in hope; cautious and mildly sceptical. Scientists
do what they can, technologists what they must.
A simple example: what happened when I changed the central heating
boiler in my rambling late fourteenth-century house? The old boiler was
underpowered and unreliable. It had to go, so in the middle of a warm
July, two polite and efficient technicians installed a new one for me. One
feature was a small device the size of a wall light switch: a wireless-­
connected thermostat that set the general temperature in the house. They
put it on the wall in our Inner Hall.
However, that room held a log-burning stove, cold in July but in win-
ter contributing to background heating. Lit in November, its heat got to
the thermostat and shut off all the central heating when most needed.
What to do? Clearly the thermostat must be moved to a new location
where the heat from the log-burner would not reach, yet where the ther-
mostat could continue to ‘talk’, by radio, with the boiler, telling it to turn
heating on or off.
A scientific approach would have been to calculate the unwanted tem-
perature rise in the thermostat for a number of locations and also the
power loss in the radio path to the boiler, doing this until one was found
that met both criteria. So is this what I did?
No, I did it the doxastic way: I took the thermostat off its wall and put
a lump of Bluetack on the back, so I could fix it where I pleased. Using
my own guesses about radio propagation and heat conduction, I tried it
out in a couple of plausible locations, checking that it worked with the
 2 The Odd Couple 9

log-burner out, then again with it lit. In the second place I tried was a
success, so I fixed it there permanently. Using the doxastic method the
time taken was a couple of hours—the scientific style could have
taken days.

Chicken and Egg and Chicken Again

The earliest Greek counterparts of today’s scientists—Parmenides,
Heraclitus, Democritus and above all Aristotle—were philosophers at
heart. They created grand hypotheses about the nature of the world, later
the universe, but rarely conducted experimental tests of their ideas, con-
vinced that truth is accessible by rigorous deduction alone, beginning
with ‘undeniable’ axioms.
Of course the axioms are the weakness; in truth none are undeniable.
As an example, for centuries philosophy took it as the most obvious of
axioms that ‘nothing can come from nothing’. Physics has now shown
that a vacuum—‘nothing’—is full of a soup of particles which come from
nothing, exist for a few moments, and then to nothing return. The axiom
was wrong, and in this it was typical.
Science was different from the start, not sharing this vulnerability. Was
it born when the intellectual rigour of philosophers attached itself to the
technologists’ age-old empiricism? Steven Weinberg seems of that opin-
ion.9 Spreading into Europe from the Islamic world during the fourteenth
century, it put the experimental or observational testing of ideas at its
centre. The Arabs translated the classic Greek texts into Arabic, but pro-
gressed beyond them. Later they spread what they had learned through
Europe in Latin translations of both Greek texts and more recent
discoveries.
Science and technology always were wholly distinct activities, but even
so are highly complementary. At times the doxastic method makes empir-
ical advances which the science community finds it possible to explain,
while at others technologists interpret known science in new ways, trans-
forming it into a valued tool. Thomas Newcomen (1664–1729) built the
first continuously acting steam engine before 1712, but a full scientific
analysis of heat engines did not appear until a century later, when Sadi
10 W. Gosling

Carnot (1796–1832)10 published his Réflexionssur la puissance motrice du

feu (1824) and founded the science of thermodynamics. Hundreds of
steam engines had been built by then, improved by doxastic methods.
Julius Lillienfeld (1882–1963) built transistors in 1925. They were
unsatisfactory because of surface effects on the semiconductor not under-
stood at the time. This need not have stopped him; doxastic empiricism
might still have won through. But at the time valves (US: vacuum tubes)
were improving fast, in consequence of doxastic innovation, putting
them at the cutting-edge of electronics. They were the thing to be playing
with then, and their theory seemed straight-forward and classical.
Transistors looked a long a shot, too difficult to understand, so their pur-
suit faltered. But by 1947 it was clear that valves simply could not meet
the needs of the new computers. Semiconductors looked attractive again,
and viable transistors followed.
There are times, by contrast, when science precedes the technology, as
it did in 1854 when the Irish mathematician George Boole (1815–1864)
codified symbolic logic.11 It was not until 1937 that Claude Shannon
(1916–2001) demonstrated how Boolean symbolism could be used to
design electrical switching circuits, making the discovery while still a stu-
dent. He recognised the technological uses of a particular pre-existing
scientific insight.
An enthusiastic juggler, Shannon worked on information theory in the
famous Bell Telephone Laboratories, which extended over such a large
area that his preferred method of getting about was by riding a unicycle,
often juggling the while. At age 84, Claude Shannon died of Alzheimer’s
disease, after years when his own ability to communicate faded fast. He
never knew the digital world he helped bring into being.

Doxastic Delivers
Many technology advances of the past were wholly doxastic, without any
benefit of scientific understanding. That was how technology first got
started, and a little continues like that to this day, yet it should do so only
when relevant scientific insights are just not available. In that case a
hunch, a guess, an intuition, a tradition perhaps, but frankly little more,
 2 The Odd Couple 11

suggests what to do and a tentative design is created. Something is built

or modelled along those lines. It is then exhaustively tested to see whether
it really does do what was hoped for. Adoption of this earlier doxastic
method, when the paucity of the science background makes it inevitable,
remains a respected and legitimate part of technology projects. Counter-­
intuitively, it usually has extremely low-risk outcomes, because testing
must be exhaustive and rigorous, to establish for sure that it can in fact
do what it is supposed to. Without it fewer projects could be brought to
a successful conclusion.12
My first technology job was with a company started in 1933 as a
British source of American-style electronic valves—vacuum tubes in US
parlance. In the early 50s, whilst an undergraduate, I joined them for the
summer vacation to assist, in a minor way, with valve design. Arriving
from a physics ARCS course at Imperial College, I was perturbed to find
that all valve development was done in doxastic style, modifying existing
designs, their own and other people’s, using an empirical approach. Soon
I understood that there was too little useable science available to do it any
other way, given the dearth of computational facilities at that time.
The first skill learned on joining the small design team was exactly how
hard and where to strike the glass envelope of a valve with the nose of a
pair of side-cutters. Done right, this would result in the glass envelope
breaking away cleanly so that the electrode structure could be extracted
undamaged for examination and measurement. Guided by trusted opin-
ions, these dimensions could be modified to create a new design to meet
a different specification.13 And so it did, but usually after several tries.
‘C’est brutal, mais ça marche’ as André-Gustave Citroen commented,
introducing the clutch-gearbox combination into early cars—‘It’s brutal
but it works’.14
The doxastic approach made possible a start for technology millennia
before science appeared. Trial and error was its tool, and progress glacially
slow. Remarkable things were achieved, though, from laminated finery
steel sword blades at one extreme to hammer-beam roofs at the other.
There were also many failures. Legend has the sword Excalibur shattering
when it never should have done had it been rightly forged. Mediaeval
buildings sometimes fell down soon after construction. Old Sarum
Cathedral collapsed in a storm five days after the builders left.
12 W. Gosling

Using every last insight science offers before taking a step beyond it
into the unknown, as we do now, greatly reduces the empirical failure
rate. And there are heartening times when science comes up with some-
thing new and helpful at the last moment, like the US Cavalry in old
cowboy movies, appearing over the hill, flags flying and bugles sounding.
A great experience, but even so, doxastic methods will never be redundant.
The ultimate challenge to all designs is from the social environment.
Will society allow what is proposed to go forward, or would its impact
prove intolerable? The early telegraph, using inconspicuous wires along
railway tracks, did not threaten the quality of life in the mid-nineteenth
century, and evoked negligible social objection. One of its competitors
proved less benign.
In 1837, effective signalling between London’s Euston station and a
stationary winding engine was vital to operating the London and
Birmingham Railway. Sited at Camden Town, nearly 3 km to the North,
the winding engine cable-hauled trains up the difficult initial gradient,
but needed a signal when to pull. William Cooke offered his telegraph for
the task. The London and Birmingham’s directors opted for something
less exotic and much cheaper: a pneumatic whistle at Euston powerful
enough to be heard all the way to Camden Town. Soon life in the 3 km
radius around Euston became unbearable from the frequent piercing
whistle blasts. Protest was vociferous, and before long the silent telegraph
took over.

Mysteries of the Craft

This is the key to a deep divide between technology and science. It arises
because the most advanced technology, even in our present time, is forced
to go beyond what science knows and can speak about with authority. It
does so, as technologists have since the beginning, by the doxastic
method—through intelligent empiricism tempered by informed opinion.
Towards the end of the twentieth century I directed a large UK com-
pany that began silicon chip production. The silicon foundry was
designed using the best scientific insights of that day, yet at start-up nine-
teen out of twenty of the finished product proved defective. What did the
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form, as he was in his court, and Gabriel said to him: “This fellow
here possesses ninety and nine sheep, but I have only one, and that
I love, and cherish in my bosom. This man claims my little ewe lamb,
and will take it from me, and, if I will not give it him, he says that he
will slay me; and take my lamb from me by force.”
Then David’s anger was kindled against Michael, and he said, “Thou
who hast so many sheep, wherefore lustest thou after the poor
man’s ewe lamb? Thou hast an evil heart and an insatiable spirit.”
Then Michael exclaimed, “Thou hast given judgment against thyself;
what thou rebukest in this man, thou hast allowed thyself to do!”[653]
And David knew that God had sent His angels to rebuke him, and he
fell upon his face to the ground. But, some say, he drew his sword
and rushed upon Michael: then Gabriel held him back, and said,
“Thou didst ask to be tried; now thou hast fallen under the
temptation.”[654]
Then the angels vanished, and David fell to the ground, tore off his
purple robe, cast aside his golden crown, and wept for forty days and
forty nights. And his tears flowed in such abundance, that every now
and then he plunged a cup into them and drank it off.
At the expiration of forty days Gabriel came to him, and said, “The
Lord salutes thee!” But David felt this was an additional reproach,
and he wept still more. It is said that during the ensuing forty days
and nights David shed more tears than Adam and all his
descendants had, and will, shed from the day of the Fall to the day of
the Resurrection.
Then God sent Gabriel to him again, and Gabriel said, “The Lord
salutes thee!” But David lifted his tearful face and said, “O Gabriel,
what will Uriah say to me on the day of the general Resurrection?”
Gabriel answered, “The Lord will give him so great an inheritance in
Paradise, that he will not have the heart to reproach thee.”
Then David knew that he was pardoned, and he rejoiced greatly. But
he never forgot his sins. He wrote them on the palm of his hand, that
he might have them always before him; therefore he says, “My
shame is ever before mine eyes.”
Nevertheless David’s heart was lifted up with pride, when he
considered that he was a king, a prophet, and a great general. And
one day he said to Nathan, “I think I am perfect, I have everything.”
“Not so,” answered Nathan, “thou exercisest no handicraft.”
Then David was ashamed, and he asked God to teach him a craft;
and God made him skilful in fabricating coats of mail of rings twined
together; his trade therefore was that of an armourer, and his
disgrace was wiped away.
After his judgment between the two angels, David had no confidence
in giving sentence in cases pleaded before him; therefore God sent
him, by the hand of Gabriel, a reed of iron and a little bell, and the
angel said to him, “God is pleased with thy humility, and He has sent
thee this reed and this bell to assist thee in giving judgment. Place
this reed in thy judgment-hall, and hang up the bell in the middle,
and place the accuser on one side, and the accused on the other,
and give sentence in favour of him who makes the bell to tinkle when
he touches the reed.”
David was highly pleased with this gift, and he gave such righteous
judgment, that men feared, throughout the land, to do wrong to one
another.
One day, two men came before David, and one said, “I left a goodly
pearl in the charge of this man, and when I asked for it again, he
denied it me.”
But the other said, “I have returned it to him.”
Then David bade each lay his hand on the reed, but the bell gave
the same indication for both. Then David thought, “They both speak
the truth, and yet that cannot be; the gift of God must err.”
Then he bade the men try again, and the result was the same.
However, he observed that the defendant, when he went up to the
reed to lay his hand upon it, gave his walking staff to the plaintiff to
hold, and this he did each time, so that David’s suspicion was
awakened, and he took the staff, and examined it, and found that it
was hollow, and the stolen pearl was concealed in the handle. Thus
the bell had given right judgment, for when the accused touched the
reed, he had returned the pearl into the hand of the accuser; but
David by his doubt in the reed displeased Him who gave it, and the
reed and the bell were taken from him.
After that, David often gave wrong judgment, till Solomon, his son,
was of age to advise him.
One day, when Solomon was aged thirteen, there came two men
before the king. The first said, “I sold a house and cellar to this man,
and on digging in the cellar he found a treasure hidden there by my
forefathers. I sold him the house and cellar, but not the treasure. Bid
him restore to me what he has found.”
But the other said, “Not so. He sold me the house, the cellar, and all
its contents.”
Then King David said, “Let the treasure be divided, and let half go to
one, and half go to the other.”
But Solomon stood up and said to the plaintiff, “Hast thou not a
son?” He said, “I have.”
Then said Solomon to the defendant, “Hast thou not a daughter?” He
answered, “I have.”
“Then,” said Solomon, “give thy daughter to the son of this man who
sold thee the house, and let the treasure go as a marriage gift to thy
daughter and his son.” And all applauded this judgment.
On another occasion, a husbandman came before the judgment-seat
to lay complaint against a herdsman, whose sheep had broken into
his field, and had pastured on his young wheat.
Then King David said, “Let some of the sheep be given to the
husbandman.”
But Solomon stood up, and said, “Not so; let the husbandman have
the wool, and the milk of the flock, till the wheat is grown up again as
it was before the sheep destroyed it.”
And all wondered at his wisdom.
But the king’s elders and councillors were filled with envy, because
this child’s opinion was preferred before theirs; and they complained
to King David.
Then David said, “Call an assembly of the people, and prove
Solomon before them, whether he be learned in the Law, and
whether he have understanding and wit.”
So the people were assembled, and the elders took council together
how they might perplex him with hard questions. But or ever they
asked him, he answered what they had devised, and they were
greatly confounded, so that the people supposed this was a
preconcerted scene arranged by the king. Then, when the elders
were silenced, Solomon turned to their chief, and said, “I too will
prove you with questions. What you have asked me have been trials
of my learning, but what I will ask you shall put to proof the readiness
of your wits. What is all, and what is nothing? What is something,
and what is naught?”
The elder was silent; he thought, but he knew not what was the
answer. And all the people perplexed themselves to discover the
riddle, but they could not. Then said Solomon, “God is all, and the
world He made is as nothing before Him. The faithful is something,
but the hypocrite is naught.”
Thereupon he turned to a second, and he said: “What are most, and
what are fewest? What is the sweetest, and what is the bitterest?”
But when the second could find no solution to these questions,
Solomon answered, “Most men are unbelievers, the fewest have true
faith. The sweetest thing is the possession of a virtuous wife, good
children, and a competence; the bitterest thing is to have a
disreputable wife, disorderly children, and penury.”
Then Solomon turned to a third elder and asked: “What is the most
odious sight, and what is the most beautiful sight? What is the surest
thing, and what is that which is most insecure?”
And when this elder also was unable to give an answer, Solomon
interpreted his riddle once more, “The most odious sight is to see a
righteous man fall away; the most beautiful sight is to see a sinner
repent. The surest thing is death, the most insecure thing is life.”
After that Solomon said to all the people, “Ye see that the oldest and
the most learned men are not always the wisest. True wisdom
comes not with years, nor is derived from books, but is a gift of God
the All-wise.”
Solomon by his words threw the whole assembly into astonishment,
and all the heads of the people cried with one voice, “Praised be the
Lord, who has given to our king a son who surpasses all in wisdom,
and who is worthy to ascend the throne of his father David.”
And David thanked God that He had given him such a wise son, and
now he desired but one thing further of God, and that was to see him
who was to be his companion in Paradise; for to every man is
allotted by God one man to be his friend and comrade in the Land of
Bliss.
So David prayed to God, and his prayer was heard, and a voice fell
from heaven and bade him confer the kingdom upon his son
Solomon, and then to go forth, and the Lord would lead him to the
place where his companion dwelt.
David therefore had his son Solomon crowned king, and then he
went forth out of Jerusalem, and he was in pilgrim’s garb, with a staff
in his hand; and he went from city to city, and from village to village,
but he found not the man whom he sought. One day, after the lapse
of many weeks, he drew near to a village upon the borders of the
Mediterranean Sea, and alongside of him walked a poorly dressed
man laden with a heavy bundle of faggots. This man was very old
and reverend of aspect, and David watched him. He saw him
dispose of his wood and then give half the money he had obtained
by the sale of it to a poor person. After that he bought a piece of
bread and retired from the town. As he went, there passed a blind
woman, and the old man broke his bread in half, and gave one
portion to the woman; and he continued his course till he reached
the mountains from which he had brought his load in the morning.
David thought, “This man well deserves to be my companion for
eternity, for he is pious, charitable, and reverend of aspect: I must
ask his name.”
He went after the old man, and he found him in a cave among the
rocks, which was lighted by a rent above. David stood without and
heard the hermit pray, and read the Tora and the Psalms, till the sun
went down. Then he lighted a lamp and began his evening prayers;
and when they were finished, he drew forth the piece of bread, and
ate the half of it.
David, who had not ventured to interrupt the devotions of the old
hermit, now entered the cave and saluted him.
The hermit asked, “Who art thou? I have seen no man here before,
save only Mata, son of Johanna, the companion destined to King
David in Paradise.”
David told his name, and asked after this Mata. But the aged man
could give him no information of his whereabouts. “But,” said he, “go
over these mountains, and observe well what thou lightest upon, and
it may be thou wilt find Mata.”
David thanked him, and continued his search. For long it was
profitless. He traversed the stony dales and the barren mountains,
and saw no trace of human foot. At last, just as hope was
abandoning him, on the summit of a rugged peak he saw a wet spot.
Then he stood still in surprise. “How comes there to be a patch of
soft and sloppy ground here?” he asked; “the topmost peak of a
stony mountain is not the place where springs bubble up.”
As he thus mused, an aged man came up the other side of the
mountain. His eyes were depressed to the earth, so that he saw not
David. And when he came to the wet patch, he stood still, and
prayed with such fervour, that rivulets of tears flowed out of his eyes,
and sank into the soil; and thus David learnt how it was that the
mountain-top was wet.
Then David thought, “Surely this man, whose eyes are such copious
fountains of tears, must be my companion in Paradise.”
Yet he ventured not to interrupt him in his prayer, till he heard him
ask, “O my God! pardon King David his sins, and save him from
further trespass! for my sake be merciful to him, for Thou hast
destined him to be my comrade for all eternity!”
Then David ran towards him, but the old man tottered and fell, and
before the king reached him he was dead.
So David dug into the ground which had been moistened by the
tears of Mata, and laid him there, and said the funeral prayer over
him, and covered him with the earth, and then returned to
Jerusalem.
And when he came into his harem, the Angel of Death stood there
and greeted him with the words, “God has heard thy supplications;
now has thy life reached its end.”
Then David said, “The Lord’s will be done!” and he fell down upon
the ground, and expired.
Gabriel descended to comfort Solomon, and to give him a heavenly
shroud in which to wrap David. And all Israel followed the bier to
Machpelah, where Solomon laid him by the side of Abraham and
Joseph.[655]
It will doubtless interest the reader to have an English version of the
Psalm supposed to have been composed by David after the slaying
of Goliath, which is not included in the Psalter, as it is supposed to
be apocryphal.

Psalm CLI. (Pusillus eram).

1. I was small among my brethren; and growing up in my father’s
house I kept my father’s sheep.
2. My hands made the organ: and my fingers shaped the
psaltery.
3. And who declared unto my Lord! He, the Lord, He heard all
things.
4. He sent His angel, and He took me from my father’s sheep:
He anointed me in mercy with His unction.
5. Great and goodly are my brethren: but with them the Lord was
not well pleased.
6. I went to meet the stranger: and he cursed me by all his idols.
 7. But I smote off his head with his own drawn sword: and I
blotted out the reproach of Israel.

This simple and beautiful psalm does not exist in Hebrew, but is
found, in Greek, in some psalters of the Septuagint version, headed
“A Psalm of David when he had slain Goliath.” S. Athanasius
mentions it with praise, in his address to Marcellinus on the
Interpretation of the Psalms, and in the Synopsis of Holy Scripture. It
was versified in Greek in A.D. 360, by Apollinarius Alexandrinus.[656]
The subjoined shield of David is given in a Hebrew book on the
properties and medicaments of things. It is said to be a certain
protection against fire. A cake of bread must be made, and on it
must be impressed the seal or shield of David, having in the corner
the word ‫ ט״יר‬and in the middle ‫( אנ״לא‬Thou art mighty to everlasting,
O Jehovah); and it must be cast aside into the fire with the words of
Psalm cvi. 30, “Then stood up Phinees and prayed; and so the
plague ceased;” and also Exod. xii. 27, “It is the sacrifice of the
Lord’s pass-over, who passed over the houses of the children of
Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered our
homes.”[657]
 XXXVIII.
SOLOMON.[658]
 1. HOW SOLOMON OBTAINED POWER.

After Solomon had executed the last offices for his father, he rested
in a dale betwixt Hebron and Jerusalem, and fell asleep. As he
returned to himself, there stood before him eight angels, each with
countless wings, diverse in kinds and colours; and the angels bowed
themselves before him three times.
“Who are ye?” asked Solomon, with eyes still closed.
“We are the angels ruling over the eight winds of heaven,” was their
reply. “God hath sent us to give thee dominion over ourselves and
over the winds subject to us. They will storm and bluster, or breathe
softly, at thy pleasure. At thy command they will swoop down on
earth, and bear thee over the highest mountains.”
The greatest of the angels gave him a jewel inscribed with “God is
Power and Greatness,” and said, “When thou hast a command for
us, then raise this stone towards heaven, and we shall appear before
thee as thy servants.”
When these angels had taken their departure, there appeared four
more, of whom each was unlike the other. One was in fashion as a
great whale, another as an eagle, the third as a lion, and the fourth
as a serpent. And they said, “We are they who rule over all the
creatures that move in the earth, and air, and water; and God hath
sent us to give thee dominion over all creatures, that they may serve
thee and thy friends with all good, and fight against thine enemies
with all their force.”
The angel who ruled over the winged fowls extended to Solomon a
precious stone, with the inscription, “Let all creatures praise the
Lord!” and said, “By virtue of this stone, raised above thy head, canst
thou call us to thy assistance, and to fulfil thy desire.”
Solomon immediately ordered the angels to bring before him a pair
of every living creature that moves in the water, flies in the air, and
walks or glides or creeps on the earth.
The angels vanished, and in an instant they were before Solomon
once more, and there were assembled in his sight pairs of every
creature, from the elephant to the smallest fly.
Solomon conversed with the angels, and was instructed by them in
the habits, virtues, and names of all living creatures; he listened to
the complaints of the beasts, birds, and fishes, and by his wisdom he
rectified many evil customs amongst them.
He entertained himself longest with the birds, both on account of
their beautiful speech, which he understood, and also because of the
wise sentences which they uttered.
This is the signification of the cry of the peacock: “With what
measure thou judgest others, thou shalt thyself be judged.”
This is the song of the nightingale: “Contentment is the greatest
happiness.”
The turtle dove calls, “Better were it for some created things that
they had never been created.”
The peewit pipes, “He that hath no mercy, will not find mercy
himself.”
The bird syrdar cries, “Turn to the Lord, ye sinners!”
The swallow screams, “Do good, and ye shall receive a reward.”
This is the pelican’s note: “Praise the Lord in heaven and earth.”
The dove chants, “The fashion of this world passeth away, but God
remaineth eternal.”
The kata says, “Silence is the best safeguard.”
The cry of the eagle is, “However long life may be, yet its inevitable
term is death.”
The croak of the raven is, “The further from man, the happier I.”
The cock crows before the dawn and in the day, “Remember thy
Creator, O thoughtless man!”
Solomon chose the cock and the peewit to be his constant
companions—the first because of its cry, and the second because it
can see through the earth as through glass, and could therefore tell
him where fountains of water were to be found.
After he had stroked the dove, he bade her dwell with her young in
the temple he was about to build to the honour of the Most High.
This pair of doves, in a few years, multiplied to such an extent, that
all who sought the temple moved through the quarter of the town it
occupied under the shadow of the wings of doves.
When Solomon was again alone, an angel appeared to him, whose
upper half was like to earth, and whose lower half was like to water.
He bowed himself before the king and said, “I am created by God to
do His will on the dry land and in the watery sea. Now, God has sent
me to serve thee, and thou canst rule over earth and water. At thy
command the highest mountains will be made plain, and the level
land will rise into steep heights. Rivers and seas will dry up, and the
desert will stream with water at thy command.” Then he gave to him
a precious stone, with the legend engraved thereon, “Heaven and
earth serve God.”
Finally, an angel presented to him another stone, whereon was cut,
“There is no God save God, and Mohammed is the messenger of
God.”
“By means of this stone,” said the angel, “thou shalt have dominion
over the whole world of spirits, which is far greater than that of men
and beasts, and occupies the space between earth and heaven. One
portion of the spirits is faithful, and praises the One only God; the
other portion is unfaithful: some adore fire, others the sun, others
worship the planets, many revere winter. The good spirits surround
the true believers among men, and protect them from all evil; the evil
spirits seek to injure them and deceive them.”
Solomon asked to see the Jinns in their natural and original shape.
The angel shot like a column of flame into heaven, and shortly
returned with the Satans and Jinns in great hosts: and Solomon,
though he had power over them, shuddered with disgust at their
loathsome appearance. He saw men’s heads attached to the necks
of horses, whose feet were those of an ass; the wings of an eagle
attached to the hump of a dromedary; the horns of a gazelle on the
head of a peacock.[659]
 2. HOW SOLOMON FEASTED ALL FLESH.

When Solomon returned home, he placed the four stones, which the
angels had given him, in a ring, so that he might at any moment
exercise his authority over the realms of spirits and beasts, the earth,
the winds, and the sea.
His first care was to subject the Jinns. He made them all appear
before him, with the exception of the mighty Sachr, who kept himself
in concealment on an unknown island in the ocean, and the great
Eblis, the master of all evil spirits, to whom God had promised
complete liberty till the day of the last Judgment.
When all the demons were assembled, Solomon pressed his seal
upon their necks, to mark them as his slaves. Then he commanded
all the male Jinns to collect every sort of material for the construction
of the temple he was about to build. He bade also the female Jinns
cook, bake, wash, weave, and carry water; and what they made he
distributed amongst the poor. The meats they cooked were placed
on tables, which covered an area of four square miles; and daily
thirty thousand portions of beef, as many portions of mutton, and
very many birds and fishes were devoured. The Jinns and devils sat
at iron tables, the poor at tables of wood, the heads of the people at
silver tables, the wise and pious at tables of gold; and these latter
were served by Solomon in person.
One day, when all spirits, men, beasts, and birds rose satisfied from
the tables, Solomon besought God to permit him to feed to the full all
created animals at once. God replied that he demanded an
impossibility. “But,” said he, “try, to-morrow, what thou canst do to
satisfy the dwellers in the sea.”
On the morrow, accordingly, Solomon bade the Jinns lade a hundred
thousand camels and the same number of mules with corn, and lead
them to the sea-shore. He then cried to the fishes and said: “Come,
ye dwellers in the water, eat and be satisfied!”
Then came all manner of fishes to the surface of the water, and
Solomon cast the corn to them, and they ate and were satisfied, and
dived out of sight. But all at once a whale lifted his head above the
surface, and it was like a mountain. Solomon bade the spirits pour
one sack of corn after another down the throat of the monster, till all
the store was exhausted, there remained not a single grain. But the
whale cried, “Feed me, Solomon! feed me! never have I suffered
from hunger as I have this day!”
Solomon asked the whale if there were any more in the deep like
him. The fish answered: “There are of my race as many as a
thousand kinds, and the smallest is so large that thou wouldst seem
in its belly to be but a sand-grain in the desert.”
Solomon cast himself upon the earth, and began to weep, and
prayed to God to pardon him for his presumption.
“My kingdom,” called to him the Most High, “is far greater than thine.
Stand up, and behold one creature over which no man has yet
obtained the mastery.”
Then the sea began to foam and toss, as though churned by the
eight winds raging against it, and out of the tumbling brine rose the
Leviathan, so great that it could easily have swallowed seven
thousand whales such as that which Solomon had attempted to feed;
and the Leviathan cried, with a voice like the roar of thunder:
“Praised be God, who by His mighty power preserves me from
perishing by hunger.”[660]
 3. THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.[661]

When Solomon returned from the sea-shore to Jerusalem, he heard

the noise of the hammers, and saws, and axes of the Jinns who
were engaged in the building of the temple; and the noise was so
great that the inhabitants of Jerusalem could not hear one another
speak. Therefore he commanded the Jinns to cease from their work,
and he asked them if there was no means whereby the metals and
stones could be shaped and cut without making so much noise.
Then one of the spirits stepped forth and said: “The means is known
only to the mighty Sachr, who has hitherto escaped your authority.”
“Is it impossible to capture this Sachr?” asked Solomon.
“Sachr,” replied the Jinn, “is stronger than all the rest of us together,
and he excels us in speed as he does in strength. However, I know
that once every month he goes to drink of a fountain in the land of
Hidjr; by this, O king, thou mayest be able to bring him under thy
sceptre.”
Solomon, thereupon, commanded a Jinn to fly to Hidjr, and to empty
the well of water, and to fill it up with strong wine. He bade other
Jinns remain in ambush beside the well and watch the result.[662]
After some weeks, when Solomon was pacing his terrace before his
palace, he saw a Jinn flying, swifter than the wind, from the direction
of Hidjr, and he asked, “What news of Sachr?”
“Sachr lies drunk on the edge of the fountain,” said the Jinn; “and we
have bound him with chains as thick as the pillars of the temple;
nevertheless, he will snap them as the hair of a maiden, when he
wakes from his drunken sleep.”
Solomon instantly mounted the winged Jinn and bade him transport
him to the well at Hidjr. In less than an hour he stood beside the
intoxicated demon. He was not a moment too soon, for the fumes of
the wine were passing off, and, if Sachr had opened his eyes,
Solomon would have been unable to constrain him. But now he
pressed his signet upon the nape of his neck: Sachr uttered a cry so
that the earth rocked on its foundations.
“Fear not,” said Solomon, “mighty Jinn; I will restore thee to liberty if
thou wilt tell me how I may without noise cut and shape the hardest
metals.”
“I myself know no means,” answered the demon; “but the raven can
tell thee how to do this. Take the eggs out of the raven’s nest and
place a crystal cover upon them, and thou shalt see how the raven
will break it.”
Solomon followed the advice of Sachr. A raven came, and fluttered
some time round the cover, and seeing that she could not reach her
eggs, she vanished, and returned shortly with a stone in her beak,
named Samur or Schamir; and no sooner had she touched the
crystal therewith, than it clave asunder.
“Whence hast thou this stone?” asked Solomon of the raven.
“It comes from a mountain in the far west,” replied the bird.
Solomon commanded a Jinn to follow the raven to the mountain, and
to bring him more of these stones. Then he released Sachr as he
had promised. When the chains were taken off him, he uttered a
loud cry of joy, which, in Solomon’s ears, bore an ominous sound as
of mocking laughter.
When the Jinn returned with the stone Schamir, Solomon mounted a
Jinn and was borne back to Jerusalem, where he distributed the
stones amongst the Jinns, and they were able to cut the rocks for the
temple without noise.[663]
Solomon also made an ark of the covenant ten ells square, and he
sought to bring it into the Holy of Holies that he had made; and when
he sought to bring the ark through the door of the temple, the door
was ten ells wide. Now, that was the width of the ark, and ten ells will
not go through ten ells. Then, when Solomon saw that the ark would
not pass through the door, he was ashamed and cried, “Lift up your
heads, O ye gates, and the King of Glory shall come in!” Then the
gates tottered, and would have fallen on his head to punish what
they supposed to be a blasphemy, for the doors thought that by “the
King of Glory” he meant himself; and they cried to him in anger,
“Who is the King of Glory?” and he answered, “It is the Lord of
Hosts, He is the King of Glory.” And because the doors were so
zealous for the honour of God, the Lord promised them that they
should never fall into the hands of the enemies of Israel. Therefore,
when the temple was burnt and the treasures were carried into
Babylon, the gates sank into the earth and vanished. And to this the
prophet Jeremiah refers (Lament, ii. 9).[664]
Solomon also built him a palace, with great riches in gold, and silver,
and precious stones, like no king that was before him. Many of the
halls had crystal floors and crystal roofs. He had a fountain of liquid
brass.[665] He had also a carpet five hundred parasangs in length;
and whenever the carpet was spread, three hundred thrones of gold
and silver were placed on it, and Solomon bade the birds of the air
spread their wings over them for a shade.[666] He built a throne for
himself of sandal wood, encrusted with gold and precious stones.
 4. THE TRAVELS OF SOLOMON.

Whilst the palace was being built, Solomon made a journey to

Damascus. The Jinn, on whose back he flew, carried him directly
over the valley of ants, which is surrounded by such crags and
precipices, that no man had hitherto seen it. The king was much
astonished to see such a host of ants under him, which were as big
as wolves, and which, on account of their grey eyes and grey feet,
looked from a distance like a cloud. The queen of the ants, who, till
this moment, had not seen a man, was filled with fear when she
beheld Solomon, and she cried to her host, “Hie to your holes, fly!”
But God commanded her not to fear, and to summon all her
subjects, and to anoint Solomon king of all insects. Solomon, who
heard the words of God, and the answer of the queen from a
distance of many miles, borne to him upon the wind, descended into
the valley beside the queen. Immediately the whole valley was filled
with ants, as far as the eye could see.
Solomon asked the queen, “Why didst thou fear me, being
surrounded with such a countless and mighty host?”
“I fear God alone,” answered the queen; “if any danger were to
threaten my subjects, at a sign from me seven times as many would
instantly appear.”
“Wherefore then didst thou command the ants to fly to their holes
when I appeared?”
“Because I feared they would look with wonder and reverence on
thee, and thereby for a moment forget their Creator.”
“I am greater than thou,” added the queen of the ants.
“How so?” asked Solomon in surprise.
“Because thou hast a metal throne, but my throne is thy hand, on
which I now repose,” said the ant.