The higher energies of the chemistries of the higher dimensionality are very difficult to define; my descriptions are no better than the description of [pg 056] life given by Professor Wilhelm Roux, in his Der Kampf der Teile im Organismus, Leipzig, 1881, which are equally unsatisfactory. In want of a better, I quote him. He defines a living being as a natural object which possesses the following nine characteristic autonomous activities: Autonomous change, Autonomous excretion, Autonomous ingestion, Autonomous assimilation, Autonomous growth, Autonomous movement, Autonomous multiplication, Autonomous transmission of hereditary characteristics and Autonomous development. The words “Autonomous activities” are important because they hint at the dimensional differences of these energies. But a better word should be found to define the dimensional differences between the activities found in inorganic chemistry and those found in organic chemistry. We see it is a mistake to speak about “life” in a crystal, in the same sense in which we use the word life to name the curious autonomous phenomenon of organic chemistry, which is of another dimension than the activities in inorganic chemistry. For the so-called life in the crystals—the not autonomous (or anautonomous) activities of crystals—another word than life should be found. In the theory of crystals the term life is purely rhetorical: its use there is very injurious to sound science. These old ideas of “life” in crystals are profoundly unscientific and serve as one of the best [pg 057] examples of the frequent confusion or intermixing of dimensions—a confusion due to unmathematical, logically incorrect ways of thinking. If crystals “live,” then volumes are surfaces, and 125 cubic units=25 square units—absurdities belonging to the “childhood of humanity.”
“Crystals can grow in a proper solution, and can regenerate their form in such a solution when broken or injured; it is even possible to prevent or retard the formation of crystals in a supersaturated solution by preventing ‘germs’ in the air from getting into the solution, an observation which was later utilized by Schroeder and Pasteur in their experiments on spontaneous generation. However, the analogies between a living organism and a crystal are merely superficial and it is by pointing out the fundamental differences between the behavior of crystals and that of living organisms that we can best understand the specific difference between non-living and living matter. It is true that a crystal can grow, but it will do so only in a supersaturated solution of its own substance. Just the reverse is true for living organisms. In order to make bacteria or the cells of our body grow, solutions of the split products of the substances composing them and not the substances themselves must be available to the cells; second, these solutions must not be supersaturated, on the contrary, they must be dilute; and third, growth leads in living organisms to cell division as soon as the mass of the cell reaches a certain limit. This process of cell division can not be claimed even metaphorically to exist in a crystal. A correct appreciation of these facts will give us an insight into the specific difference between non-living and living matter. The formation of living matter consists in the synthesis of the proteins, nucleins, fats, and carbohydrates of the cells, from split products....
“The essential difference between living and non-living matter consists then in this: the living cell synthesizes its own complicated specific material from indifferent or non-specific simple compounds of the surrounding medium, while the crystal simply adds the molecules found in its supersaturated solution. This synthetic power of transforming small ‘building stones’ into the complicated compounds specific for each organism is the ‘secret of life’ or rather one of the secrets of life.” (The Organism as a Whole, by Jacques Loeb.)
It will be explained later that one of the energetic phenomena of organic chemistry—the “mind,” which is one of the energies characteristic of this class of phenomena, is “autonomous,” is “self-propelling” and true to its dimensionality. If we analyse the classes of life, we readily find that there are three cardinal classes which are radically distinct in function. A short analysis will disclose to us that, though minerals have various activities, they are not “living.” The plants have a very definite and well known function—the transformation of solar energy into organic chemical energy. They are a class of life which appropriates one kind of energy, converts it into another kind and stores it up; in that sense they are a kind of storage battery for the solar energy; and so I define the plants as the chemistry-binding class of life.
The animals use the highly dynamic products of the chemistry-binding class—the plants—as food, [pg 059] and those products—the results of plant-transformation—undergo in animals a further transformation into yet higher forms; and the animals are correspondingly a more dynamic class of life; their energy is kinetic; they have a remarkable freedom and power which the plants do not possess—I mean the freedom and faculty to move about in space; and so I define animals as the space-binding class of life.
And now what shall we say of human beings? What is to be our definition of Man? Like the animals, human beings do indeed possess the space-binding capacity but, over and above that, human beings possess a most remarkable capacity which is entirely peculiar to them—I mean the capacity to summarise, digest and appropriate the labors and experiences of the past; I mean the capacity to use the fruits of past labors and experiences as intellectual or spiritual capital for developments in the present; I mean the capacity to employ as instruments of increasing power the accumulated achievements of the all-precious lives of the past generations spent in trial and error, trial and success; I mean the capacity of human beings to conduct their lives in the ever increasing light of inherited wisdom; I mean the capacity in virtue of which man is at once the heritor of the by-gone ages and the trustee of posterity. And because humanity is just this magnificent [pg 060] natural agency by which the past lives in the present and the present for the future, I define humanity, in the universal tongue of mathematics and mechanics, to be the time-binding class of life.
These definitions of the cardinal classes of life are, it will be noted, obtained from direct observation; they are so simple and so important that I cannot over-emphasize the necessity of grasping them and most especially the definition of Man. For these simple definitions and especially that of Humanity will profoundly transform the whole conception of human life in every field of interest and activity; and, what is more important than all, the definition of Man will give us a starting point for discovering the natural laws of human nature—of the human class of life. The definitions of the classes of life represent the different classes as distinct in respect to dimensionality; and this is extremely important for no measure or rule of one class can be applied to the other, without making grave mistakes. For example, to treat a human being as an animal—as a mere space-binder—because humans have certain animal propensities, is an error of the same type and grossness as to treat a cube as a surface because it has surface properties. It is absolutely essential to grasp that fact if we are ever to have a science of human nature.
We can represent the different classes of life in three life coordinates. The minerals, with their inorganic activities would be the Zero (0) dimension of “life”—that is the lifeless class—here represented by the point M.
The plants, with their “autonomous” growth, to be represented by the one dimensional line MP.
The animals, with their “autonomous” capacity to grow and to be active in space by the two dimensional plane PAM.