Blake makes quite explicit that when sense ratios change, men change. Sense ratios change when any one sense of bodily or mental function is externalized in technological form:
The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man, & when separated From Imagination and losing itself as in steel in a Ratio
Of the Things of Memory, It thence frames Laws & Moralities
To destroy Imagination, the Divine Body, by Martyrdoms & Wars.
“We Need a New Picture of Knowledge,” New Insights and the Curriculum Yearbook (NAEB), 1963, p 8
Year: 1963
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan