As the seemingly ultimate and highest experimentally known energy is the human time-binding energy, this new concept may lead to a change in our present concepts of matter, space and time, in much the same way as the discovery of radium has affected them. This problem can be solved only by scientific experiments with the time-binding energy.
In many, even in most, of the cases, the analysis of these phenomena presents great technical difficulty, but why confuse our minds by being afraid of, or being a slave of words? If instead of calling wine wine, we called it by its chemical formula, would this, in any way, change the quality of wine? Of course not. All the “qualities” will remain because they are facts, and cannot be altered by words.
A most pathetic picture of the havoc and chaos which [pg 226] wrong use of words brings into life and science is exhibited in all fields of thought by the endless and bitter fighting over words not well defined. Mathematics has been able to make its most stupendous achievements because of its method of exact analysis of the continuum, dimensions, classes, relations, functions, transfinite numbers, etc., and also of space and time. Hitherto, not all of these conceptions in their sharply defined form have had direct application to our daily life or to our world conception. The thoughts expressed in App. I may suggest this “missing link”—connecting mathematics more intimately with life.
Modern science knows that all energies can be somehow transformed from one kind to another and that all of them represent one type of energetic phenomena, no matter what is the origin of each. For example, a galvanic or chemical battery produces the same kind of electricity as the mechanical process of friction or the interaction of cosmic laws as in the dynamo. In some instances, when our systems are suitably adjusted, the transformations are reversible, that is, the energy results in a chemical process—an accumulator; the chemical process results in electricity—the galvanic battery; motion results in electricity—the dynamo; electricity results in motion—the electric motor; etc. We know all energies are somehow related to each other, in that their transformation is possible. The effects produced by the same type of energy are absolutely the same—no matter what its origin. The marvel of an electric lamp is the same marvel, whether the origin of the electricity be chemical, mechanical or cosmic as in the dynamo. The experiments in scientific biology have proved this to be true in living organisms and just this is the tremendous importance of the discoveries in scientific biology. Light and other energies react on organisms in the same way as the chemical reactions and these phenomena are reversible. More than that, living complex organisms have been produced which grew to maturity through a chemical [pg 227] or mechanical treatment of the egg, and this has been accomplished in the infancy of scientific biology! (See The Organisms as a Whole, by Jacques Loeb.)
All phenomena in nature are natural and should be approached as such. The human mind is at least an energy which can direct other energies; it is incorrect and misleading to call it supernatural. It is of course true that we do not fully understand the nature of the human mind and we shall learn to understand it when and only when we acquire sense enough to recognize it as natural. If we persist in saying and believing that the “spiritual evidences cannot be explained on a material base,” this statement should be equally applicable to electricity or radium. If this statement is false for these phenomena, it is equally false for the mind or the so-called spiritual and will powers. The scientific understanding of these phenomena will not “degrade” these phenomena, because that cannot be done. Facts remain facts and no scientific explanation of a phenomenon can lower or degrade that which is a fact. Electricity is electricity and nothing else, no matter what its origin; human time-binding energies (embracing all faculties) are the highest of the known energies—equally magnificent and astonishing—no matter what the base; and the scientific understanding of them will only add to our respect for them and for ourselves; it will unmistakably help us to develop them indefinitely by mathematical analysis. The base is not the phenomenon—sulphuric acid and zinc are not electricity; time-binding energies are not a pound of beefsteak, although a pound of beefsteak may help to save life and be therefore instrumental in the production of a poem or of a sonata; but by no means can a beefsteak be taken for either of them.
I have attempted, with some measure of success I trust, to solve these problems in science and life; the results are astonishing, as they lead us to a much higher and more embracing ethics than society has ever had. By this analysis [pg 228] I prove that the understanding of this most stupendous but natural phenomenon of human life brings us to the scientifical source of ethics and I prove that the so-called “highest ideals of humanity” have nothing of “sentimentalism” or of the “supernatural” in them, but are exclusively the fulfilment of the natural laws for the human class of life. The recognition of the fact that the phenomena of the human mind are natural and as such conform to natural law has the further advantage over the “supernatural” attitude in that we can no more evade a law of human nature than the law of gravity; in other words, human ethics will have the validity of natural law. With the supernatural attitude, it was simple enough to avoid the issues of life, by a simple statement—“I do not believe”—and that was enough to break all bonds and be free from the “supernatural morale”—but to get away from the “natural morale” and remain human is impossible. Whereas, with an artificially formulated morale it was easy enough to break away by a simple mental speculation, and feel perfectly satisfied as long as one escaped the jail; with a morale made clear that it is a natural law for the human class of life, the curtain of sophistry and speculation is removed and everyone who breaks away from the natural laws for humans, will know by himself, that he is outside the law—for humans.
Engineers are not metaphysicians, their field is not one of clever argument but one of proved facts; their work is not to befog the air with cloudy expressions or sophistry, but to create; their method is scientific and their tool is mathematics. It is known that in remote antiquity, in some temples electrical phenomena were known and were used to keep the ignorant masses in awe and obedience. Shall we follow the methods used by those magicians or shall we squarely face facts? Shall we look upon life, and the usually so-called mental, spiritual phenomena, etc., as supernatural, simply because we do not understand them? It seems evident that [pg 229] everything which exists in nature, is natural, no matter how simple or complicated a phenomenon it is; and on no occasion can the so-called “supernatural” be anything else than a completely natural law, though it may, at the moment, be above or beyond our present understanding. The attitude of mind which admits the supernatural blinds and frustrates any analysis or any attempt at analysis. The unprejudiced analysis of the so-called “supernatural” does not alter any part of the strange and high functions of it. The phenomena of the human time-binding energy are and will remain the most precious, subtle and highest of known functions, no matter what the origin. Facts may not be denied or falsified if analysis is to arrive at correct conclusions. The high dimensionality of the human mind, the so-called spiritual and will powers, are facts and must be accepted as such. It is about time to establish an exact science to deal with them. The problems of animal life were approached without prejudice, no supernatural “spark” was bothering us in our analysis—an animal was an animal and nothing else—we did not intermix dimensions, therefore we see that the “social structure” of the animals on a farm never breaks down as they are managed on a scientific base with an understanding of their proper standards. Animals to-day live more happily than man. We don't allow animals to practice the “survival of the fittest,” or “competition,” which is far too destructive. Our present social system imposes these disastrous methods upon man alone, and the result is that the hideous proverb “Homo homini lupus” has become true.
In modern science facts are not wanting, we have first but to know them. If we take, for example, sulphuric acid and zinc and make what we call a galvanic battery, we see that from two chemical substances a third—a salt—is made in addition to which we have a peculiar energy produced called electricity. Who does not know the marvelous properties of this phenomenon?
Scientific biology has made tremendous progress lately; engineers cannot afford to ignore the facts established in laboratory researches. The problem of “life” and of other energies, hitherto considered “supernatural,” is well in hand, and proves to be none the less astonishing though entirely natural. A number of scientists all over the world are working at this problem and the scientific facts which they have established, and which cannot now be denied, belong to-day to the realm of practical life. Engineers, of course, have to know these facts; mathematicians have to establish correct dimensions in the study of all the sciences and people will have to study mathematical philosophy; only then can the process of integration in any phase of thought be made without mistakes. There is no escape from that, if truth is what we really want. But here one objection may be raised, an objection which for some is a serious one indeed; namely, what will take the place of the old philosophy, law and ethics, if human life is nothing else than a physico-chemical process? To quote Doctor Jacques Loeb from his Mechanistic Conception of Life: “If on the basis of a serious survey, this question (that all life phenomena can be unequivocally explained in physico-chemical terms—Author) can be answered in the affirmative, our social and ethical life will have to be put on a scientific basis and our rules of conduct must be brought into harmony with the results of scientific biology. Not only is the mechanistic conception of life compatible with ethics, it seems the only conception of life which can lead to an understanding of the source of ethics.”
I hope to have proved in this book that scientific ethics is based on natural laws for the human class of life; that it is based on the experimentally proved fact that Man is a Time-binder, naturally active as such in time; and that this concept or definition of Man is rigorously scientific and accounts for the highest functions of man—the highest of the mental [pg 231] and spiritual perfections—without the need of any “supernatural” hypothesis.