Oswald Spengler. The Decline of the West. An abridged edition by
Helmut Werner. English abridged edition prepared by Arthur Helps
from the translation by Charles Francis Atkinson. New York:
oxford University Press c199 [1926, 1928, 1932]. xxxx,415, xvix
SCIENCE, PURITANISM [340]
...Pure contemplative philosophy could have dispensed with
experiment forever, but not so the Faustian symbol of the
machine, which urged us to mechanical construcitons even
in the twelfth century and made "perpetuum
mobile" the Promethus-idea of the Western intellect.
Forus, the first thing is every the working hypothesis--
the very kind of thought-product that is meaningless to other
Cultures. It is an astounding fact (to which, however, we must
accustom ourselves) that the idea of immediately exploiting in
practice any knowledge of natural relations that may be acquired
is alien to every sort of manking except the Faustian...
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