“Before speaking of psychology we must be clear to whom it refers and to whom it does not refer,” he said. “Psychology refers to people, to men, to human beings. What psychology” (he emphasized the word) “can there be in relation to machines? Mechanics, not psychology, is necessary for the study of machines. That is why we begin with MECHANICS. It is a very long way yet to psychology.” Fragments: One

“In order to understand the MECHANICS of the universe it is necessary to resolve complex phenomena into these elementary forces. Fragments: Seven

I have preserved in my memory one episode. It happened at one of the repetitions of this lecture on the structure of matter in connection with the MECHANICS of the universe. The lecture was read by P., a young engineer belonging to G.’s Moscow pupils, whom I have mentioned. Fragments: Nine

“And this last point seems to me to be connected with what G. calls the ‘principle of relativity.’ His principle of relativity has nothing in common with the principle of relativity in MECHANICS or with Einstein’s principle of relativity. It is the same again as in the New Model of the Universe; it is the principle of the relativity of existence.” Fragments: Ten

“Questions have often been asked at these lectures as to what is ‘black magic’ and I have replied that there is neither red, green, nor yellow magic. There is MECHANICS, that is, what ‘happens,’ and there is ‘doing.’ ‘Doing’ is magic and ‘doing’ can be only of one kind. There cannot be two kinds of ‘doing.’ But there can be a falsification, an imitation of the outward appearance of ‘doing,’ which cannot give any objective results but which can deceive naive people and produce in them faith, infatuation, enthusiasm, and even fanaticism. Fragments: Eleven

I felt so much in this word that for some time I did not hear myself what I was saying. But after I had collected my thoughts I saw that they were listening to me and that I had explained everything I had not understood myself on the way to the meeting. This gave me an extraordinarily strong and clear sensation as though I had discovered for myself new possibilities, a new method of perception and understanding by giving explanations to other people. And under the impetus of this sensation, as soon as I had said that examples or analogies of the transition of the forces 1, 2, 3 and 1, 3, 2 must be found in the real world, I at once saw these examples both in the human organism and in the astronomical world and in MECHANICS in the movements of waves. Fragments: Thirteen