Read the following passage carefully and answer the Questions that follow in your own words:
“The third great defect of our civilization is that it does not know what to do with its knowledge. Science has given us powers fit for the gods, yet we use them like small children. For example, we do not know how to manage our machines. Machines were made to be man’s servants, yet he has grown so dependent on them that they are in a fair way to become his masters. Already most men spend most of their lives looking after and waiting upon machines. And the machines are very stern masters. They must be fed with coal, and given petrol to drink, and oil to wash with and they must be kept at the right temperature. And if they do not get their meals when they expect them, they grow sulky and refuse to work, or burst with rage, and blow up and spread ruin and destruction all round them. So we have to wait upon them very attentively and do all that we can to keep them in a good temper. Already we find it difficult either to work or play without the machines, and a time may come when they will rule us altogether, just as we rule the animals. And this brings me to the point at which I asked “What do we do with all time which the machines have saved for us, and the new energy they have given us?” On the whole, it must be admitted, we do very little. For the most part we use our time and energy to make more and better machines, but more and better machines will only give us still more time and still more energy and what are we to do with them? The answer, I think, is that we should try to become more civilized. For the machines themselves, and the power which the machines have given us, are not civilization but aids to civilization. But you will remember that we agreed at the beginning that being civilized meant making and liking beautiful things, thinking freely, and living rightly and maintaining justice equally between man and man. Man has a better chance today to do these things than he ever had before, he has more time, more energy, less to fear and less to fight against. lf he will give his time and energy which his machines have won for him to making more beautiful things, to finding out more and more about the universe to removing the causes of quarrels between nations, to discovering how to prevent poverty, then I think our civilization would undoubtedly be the greatest, as it would be the most lasting that there has ever been.”

1. What is your concept of “Civilization”? Do you agree with the author’s views on the subject?
A civilization is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language. I agree with the author's assertion that civilization entails the creation and fusion of lovely things. Some other characteristics of civilization include ensuring equality of justice between mankind and safeguarding one's freedom of thought and expression.

2. Science has given us powers fit for the gods. If it a curse or blessing?
Science has given us powers fit for the gods, but this has been a curse rather than a blessing because most men are stuck in a perpetual cycle of upgradation – improving the previous version of a machine. This spending of free time and energy by men to make more efficacious machines leaves them no time for themselves or their environment.

3. The use of machines has brought us more leisure and energy? Are we utilizing it to improve the quality of human life?
The use of machines has brought mankind more leisure and more energy, but mankind is not utilizing this ample time for the improvement of the quality of human life. Most men spend most of their free time and energy making more efficient machines, which will give him still more time for leisure and energy. Ironically, he does not get that free time because he is stuck creating a more efficient machine than the previous one, hence leaving no time for himself or for the improvement of the civilization and the quality of human life.

4. Instead of making machines our servants, the author says, they have become our masters. In what sense has this come about?
Machines were made to be man’s servants, but he has grown so dependent on them that they have become his master, as most men spend most of their lives looking after them, maintaining them regularly, and waiting upon them whenever necessary.