TBL Staff

The following book review appeared in The Scottish Rite Journal. Permission is granted to reprint in Masonic publications, providing that appropriate attribution is provided.

Petroski, Henry. To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design. St. Martin's Press, New York. 1985. 247+xiii pp. $16.95.

Henry Petrowski is a professor of civil engineering and director of graduate studies at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Civil engineering is, of course, that branch of engineering that deals with large structures, such as buildings and bridges. This book, unlike most books on engineering, stands out for two reasons: It is intended for a general audience, and it focuses, as the title suggests, on the things that can go wrong in engineering, as well as on those that have gone well. Most professions as a whole, like individuals, do not appreciate having their shortcomings and failure pointed out; the popular medical literature recounts diseases conquered and patients cured, while autobiographies of famous lawyers give short shrift to the cases that they lost. Petrowski's genius in writing this book is to show how there is as much or more to be learned from failure as there is in success.

Many of Petrowski's examples are drawn from the headlines of the recent past, as well as the experiences of the Nineteenth Century. The 1979 DC-10 crash in Chicago, when an improperly-maintained engine fell off a plane during takeoff, and the Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in 1981 receive much examination, as does the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, whose dramatic failure in 1940 was captured on newsreel film still shown to engineering students. The picture of this bridge twisting and rolling in a crosswind cannot be forgotten. But Petrowski also finds illustrations in such homely places as the kitchen, where he examines his family's kitchen knives to determine why three of them have developed cracks, but six have not.

From each of these sources, as well as many others, the author shows us how the professional engineer makes his design choices, expands upon the work done by his predecessors, and analyzes the causes of failure when it occurs. Throughout the book, two themes recur: First is that, as the title suggests, engineering is a human activity, prone, as we humans are, to error and failure. Secondly, that progress in engineering, like all human endeavors, comes by going beyond what has been done before and is known to be safe; this is how failures occur. As structures are made wider, taller, lighter, and more daring in other ways, sooner or later, someone's ventures beyond the safe and sure will meet with failure. What has worked before defines only the inner limit of what is possible, and we learn nothing new from the cautious and commonplace. It is failure that teaches us the outer limits. Columbus would have discovered nothing had he chosen not to sail out of sight of land. By daring to fall off the edge of the world, he instead opened up an entire new vista for exploration.

This book is an appropriate choice for Freemasons. Some of us have difficulty understanding how the operative Craft of the Middle Ages could have given rise to the Speculative Masonry we now practice. Not only does Petrowski discuss the experiences of the medieval cathedral builders in particular, he also uses many examples from literature, especially poetry, to illustrate principles of engineering. The entire text of Oliver Wendell Holmes's poem, "The Deacon's Masterpiece," is included in the book. Even more, he compares the construction of a poem to that of an engineering structure and also quotes literary works (e.g., Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Celestial Railroad," written in 1843) where engineering structures stand as direct metaphors for philosophical concepts, just as is done in Masonry.

An even more significant relationship to Masonry comes from his fundamental concept that failure is as instrumental as success in teaching. For although there are many Masonic lectures that seek to teach many principles, the most vital principles of all are taught in the Third Degree. And the legend that imparts those lessons is one that fundamentally speaks of failure, not success, of work uncompleted, of human nature falling short. While those who created the Master Mason's degree may have looked more to Shakespeare, whose tragedies, more than his comedies, tell us of the intricacies of human nature, To Engineer Is Human shows us that there is an equally intimate connection between this lesson of speculative Masonry and that of the operative builder's art.

Dr. Roger M. Firestone, 33
10159 Turnberry Place
Oakton, VA 22124-2847