Maritain: "The mastery of man over himself"

“THERE are two ways of conceiving the mastery of man over himself. Man can become master of his nature by imposing on the world of his own inner energies the law of reason, of reason assisted by grace. This work, which is the formation of oneself on love, requires that our branches be cut in order in order that we may bear fruit: which is mortification. Such a practice follows the ethics of asceticism. The heirs of rationalism seek to impose on us today an entirely different system of ethics, an anti-ascetic system that is exclusively technological. . . . Technique is good, machinery is good. . . . But if machinery and technical processes are not controlled and firmly subjugated to the well-being of mankind, that is to say, fully and vigorously subordinated to the ethics of religion and made the instruments of moral asceticism, mankind is irretrievably and literally lost.”

~Jacques Maritain: Freedom in the Modern World.