There is a great diversity of public reaction to the partnership between the machine and artistic creation. Some people maintain that a work of art cannot result, for by definition it must be 'created', in the whole and its parts, all along the line, by a human being, whereas a machine, being dead, cannot invent. Others again hold that one might certainly undertake the ride by machine just for fun, or to see what will turn out, but the result will not be 'finished' or anything more than an experiment, interesting though it might be. The fanatics, finally, accept without hesitation all the marvels of the craziest science-fiction. The moon? Why not—it's quite within our reach. Longevity, too, is just around the cor-ner... Why not the creative machine as well? These are some of the faithful whose cranky optimism has replaced the myths of Icarus and of fallen fairies by the scientific civilization of the twentieth century-and this civilization does not even prove them altogether wrong.