Re: Mechanism behind trumpet playing robot?

beginning of the twentieth century, human
equality had become technically possible. It was still true that men were
not equal in their native talents and that functions had to be specialized
in ways that favoured some individuals against others; but there was no
longer any real need for class distinctions or for large differences of
wealth. In earlier ages, class distinctions had been not only inevitable
but desirable. Inequality was the price of civilization. With the
development of machine production, however, the case was altered. Even if
it was still necessary for human beings to do different kinds of work, it
was no longer necessary for them to live at different social or economic
levels. Therefore, from the point of view of the new groups who were on the
point of seizing power, human equality was no longer an ideal to be striven
after, but a danger to be averted. In more primitive ages, when a just and
peaceful society was in fact not possible, it had been fairly easy to
believe it. The idea of an earthly paradise in which men should live
together in a state of brotherhood, without laws and without brute labour,
had haunted the human imagination for thousands of years. And this vision
had had a certain hold even on the groups who actually profited by each
historical change. The heirs of the French, English, and Amer