Manhood Of Humanity

The Science and Art of

Human Engineering

By

Alfred Korzybski

New York

E. P. Dutton & Company

681 Fifth Avenue

1921

Contents

[pg vii]

Acknowledgement

The author and the publishers acknowledge with gratitude the following permissions to make use of copyright material in this work:

Messrs. D. C. Heath & Company, for permission to quote from “Unified Mathematics,” by Louis C. Karpinski, Harry Y. Benedict and John W. Calhoun.

Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, for permission to quote from “Organism as a Whole” and “Physiology of the Brain,” by Jacques Loeb.

Messrs. Harper & Brothers, for permission to quote from “From the Life, Imaginary Portraits of Some Distinguished Americans,” by Harvey O'Higgins.

Messrs. D. Appleton & Company, for permission to quote from “Corporation Finance,” by E. S. Mead.

Messrs. J. B. Lippincott Company, for permission to quote from “Forced Movements,” by Jacques Loeb.

Princeton University Press, for permission to quote from “Heredity and Environment,” by Edwin Grant Conklin.

Columbia University Press, for permission to quote from “The Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking,” by C. J. Keyser.

The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, for permission to quote from The Journal of Experimental Medicine, Vol. 27.

The New School for Social Research, for permission to quote from “An Outline of the History of the Western European Mind,” by James Harvey Robinson.

The Engineering Magazine Company, for permission to quote from “Mastering Power Production,” by Walter N. Polakov.

Preface

This book is primarily a study of Man and ultimately embraces all the great qualities and problems of Man. As a study of Man it takes into consideration all the characteristics which make Man what he is. If some readers do note the absence of certain expressions familiar to them, it does not mean that the author does not feel or think as many other people—he does—and very much so; but in this book an effort has been made to approach the problem of Man from a scientific-mathematical point of view, and therefore great pains have been taken not to use words insufficiently defined, or words with many meanings. The author has done his utmost to use such words as convey only the meaning intended, and in the case of some words, such as “spiritual,” there has been superadded the word “so-called,” not because the author has any belief or disbelief in such phenomena; there is no need for beliefs because some such phenomena exist, no matter what we may think of them or by what name we call them; but because the word “spiritual” is not scientifically defined, and every individual understands and uses this word in a personal and private way. To be impersonal the [pg x] author has had to indicate this element by adding “so-called.” I repeat once again that this book is not a “materialistic” or a “spiritualistic” book—it is a study of “Man” and therefore does and should include materialistic as well as spiritual phenomena because only the complex of these phenomena constitutes the complex of Man.

The problem has not been approached from the point of view of any private doctrine or creed, but from a mathematical, an engineering, point of view, which is impersonal and passionless. It is obvious that to be able to speak about the great affairs of Man, his spiritual, moral, physical, economic, social or political status, it must first be ascertained what Man is—what is his real nature and what are the basic laws of his nature. If we succeed in finding the laws of human nature, all the rest will be a comparatively easy task—the ethical, social, economic and political status of Man should be in accord with the laws of his nature; then civilization will be a human civilization—a permanent and peaceful one—not before.

It is useless to argue if electricity be “natural” or “supernatural,” of “material” or of “spiritual” origin. As a matter of fact we do not ask these questions in studying electricity; we endeavor to find out the natural laws governing it and in handling live wires we do not argue or speculate about them—we [pg xi] use rubber gloves, etc. It will be the same with Man and the great affairs of Man—we have, first of all, to know what Man is.

Though this book has been written with scrupulous care to avoid words or terms of vague meaning—and though it often may seem coldly critical of things metaphysical, it has not been written with indifference to that great, perhaps the greatest, urge of the human heart—the craving for spiritual truth—our yearning for the higher potentialities of that which we call “mind,” “soul” and “spirit”—but it has been written with the deep desire to find the source of these qualities, their scientific significance and a scientific proof of them, so that they may be approached and studied by the best minds of the world without the digressions, and misinterpretations that are caused by the color and the confusion of personal emotions; and if the book be read with care, it will be seen that, though the clarifying definition of the classes of life has been chiefly used in the book for its great carrying power in the practical world, its greatest help will ultimately be in guiding the investigation, the right valuation and especially the control and use of the higher human powers.

In writing this book I have been not only introducing new ideas and new methods of analysis, but I have been using a tongue new to me. The original manuscript was very crude and foreign in form, and [pg xii] I am greatly indebted to various friends for their patient kindness in correcting the many errors of my poor English.

I am also under great obligations to Walter Polakov, Doctor of Engineering, for his exceedingly helpful suggestions, not only in giving me a thorough criticism from the point of view of the Engineer, but also in devoting his energies to organizing the first “Time-binding Club” where these problems have been discussed and criticized, with great practical results.

To all those who have read and criticized the manuscript or helped otherwise—Professors E. H. Moore, C. J. Keyser, J. H. Robinson, Burges Johnson, E. A. Ross, A. Petrunkevitch; and Doctors J. Grove-Korski, Charles P. Steinmetz, J. P. Warbasse; Robert B. Wolf, Vice-President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; Champlain L. Riley, Vice-President of the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers; Miss Josephine Osborn; to the authors, L. Brandeis, E. G. Conklin, C. J. Keyser, J. Loeb, E. S. Mead, H. O'Higgins, W. Polakov, J. H. Robinson, R. B. Wolf, for their kind permission to quote them, I wish to express my sincere appreciation.

I wish also to acknowledge the deepest gratitude to my wife, formerly Mira Edgerly, who has found in this discovery of the natural law for the human [pg xiii] class of life, the solution of her life long search, and who, because of her interest in my work, has given me incomparably inspiring help and valuable criticism. It is not an exaggeration to state that except for her steady and relentless work and her time, which saved my time, this book could not have been produced in such a comparatively short time.

Mr. Walter Polakov of New York City, Industrial Counsellor and Industrial Engineer in New York City, has kindly consented at my request to act, with my authority, as my representative to whom any further queries should be addressed in my absence from America.

To all other friends who have helped in many personal ways I express thankfulness, as I wish also to thank John Macrae, Esq., the Vice-President of E. P. Dutton & Co., for his unusual attitude toward publishing the book.

Chapter I. Introduction. Method and Processes of Approach to a New Concept of Life

“For a while he trampled with impunity on laws human and divine but, as he was obsessed with the delusion that two and two makes five, he fell, at last a victim to the relentless rules of humble Arithmetic.

“Remember, O stranger, Arithmetic is the first of the sciences and the mother of safety.”

Brandeis.

It is the aim of this little book to point the way to a new science and art—the science and art of Human Engineering. By Human Engineering I mean the science and art of directing the energies and capacities of human beings to the advancement of human weal. It need not be argued in these times that the establishment of such a science—the science of human welfare—is an undertaking of immeasurable importance. No one can fail to see that its importance is supreme.

It is evident that, if such a science is to be established it must be founded on ascertained facts—it must accord with what is characteristic of Man—it must be based upon a just conception of what Man [pg 002] is—upon a right understanding of Man's place in the scheme of Nature.

No one need be told how indispensable it is to have true ideas—just concepts—correct notions—of the things with which we humans have to deal; everyone knows for example, that to mistake solids for surfaces or lines would wreck the science and art of geometry; anyone knows that to confuse fractions with whole numbers would wreck the science and art of arithmetic; everyone knows that to mistake vice for virtue would destroy the foundation of ethics; everyone knows that to mistake a desert mirage for a lake of fresh water does but lure the fainting traveler to dire disappointment or death. Now, it is perfectly clear that of all the things with which human beings have to deal, the most important by far is Man himself—humankind—men, women and children. It follows that for us human beings nothing else can be quite so important as a clear, true, just, scientific concept of Man—a right understanding of what we as human beings really are. For it requires no great wisdom, it needs only a little reflection, to see that, if we humans radically misconceive the nature of man—if we regard man as being something which he is not, whether it be something higher than man or lower—we thereby commit an error so fundamental and far reaching as to produce [pg 003] every manner of confusion and disaster in individual life, in community life and in the life of the race.

The question we have, therefore, to consider first of all is fundamentally: What is Man? What is a man? What is a human being? What is the defining or characteristic mark of humanity? To this question two answers and only two have been given in the course of the ages, and they are both of them current to-day. One of the answers is biological—man is an animal, a certain kind of animal; the other answer is a mixture partly biological and partly mythological or partly biological and partly philosophical—man is a combination or union of animal with something supernatural. An important part of my task will be to show that both of these answers are radically wrong and that, beyond all things else, they are primarily responsible for what is dismal in the life and history of humankind. This done, the question remains: What is Man? I hope to show clearly and convincingly that the answer is to be found in the patent fact that human beings possess in varying degrees a certain natural faculty or power or capacity which serves at once to give them their appropriate dignity as human beings and to discriminate them, not only from the minerals and the plants but also from the world of animals, this peculiar or characteristic human faculty or power or capacity I shall [pg 004] call the time-binding faculty or time-binding power or time-binding capacity. What I mean by time-binding will be clearly and fully explained in the course of the discussion, and when it has been made clear, the question—What Is Man?—will be answered by saying that man is a being naturally endowed with time-binding capacity—that a human being is a time-binder—that men, women and children constitute the time-binding class of life.

There will then remain the great task of indicating and in a measure sketching some of the important ways in which the true conception of man as man will transform our views of human society and the world, affect our human conduct and give us a growing body of scientific wisdom regarding the welfare of mankind including all posterity.

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to consider certain general matters of a preliminary nature—to indicate the spirit of the undertaking—to provide a short course of approach and preparation—to clear the deck, so to speak, and make ready for action.

There are two ways to slide easily through life: Namely, to believe everything, or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking. The majority take the line of least resistance, preferring to have their thinking done for them; they accept ready-made individual, private doctrines as their own and [pg 005] follow them more or less blindly. Every generation looks upon its own creeds as true and permanent and has a mingled smile of pity and contempt for the prejudices of the past. For two hundred or more generations of our historical past this attitude has been repeated two hundred or more times, and unless we are very careful our children will have the same attitude toward us.

There can be no doubt that humanity belongs to a class of life which to a large extent determines its own destinies, establishes its own rules of education and conduct, and thus influences every step we are free to take within the structure of our social system. But the power of human beings to determine their own destinies is limited by natural law, Nature's law. It is the counsel of wisdom to discover the laws of nature, including the laws of human nature, and then to live in accordance with them. The opposite is folly.

A farmer must know the natural laws that govern his wheat, or corn, or cow, as otherwise he will not have satisfactory crops, or the quality and abundance of milk he desires, whereas the knowledge of these laws enables him to produce the most favorable conditions for his plants and animals, and thereby to gain the desired results.

Humanity must know the natural laws for humans, otherwise humans will not create the conditions and [pg 006] the customs that regulate human activities which will make it possible for them to have the most favorable circumstances for the fullest human development in life; which means the release of the maximum natural-creative energy and expression in mental, moral, material and spiritual and all the other great fields of human activities, resulting in happiness in life and in work—collectively and individually—because the conditions of the earning of a livelihood influence and shape all our mental processes and activities, the quality and the form of human inter-relationship.

Every human achievement, be it a scientific discovery, a picture, a statue, a temple, a home or a bridge, has to be conceived in the mind first—the plan thought out—before it can be made a reality, and when anything is to be attempted that involves any number of individuals—methods of coordination have to be considered—the methods which have proven to be the best suited for such undertakings are engineering methods—the engineering of an idea toward a complete realization. Every engineer has to know the materials with which he has to work and the natural laws of these materials, as discovered by observation and experiment and formulated by mathematics and mechanics; else he can not calculate the forces at his disposal; he can not compute the resistance of his materials; he can not determine the capacity and requirements of his power plant; in [pg 007] short, he can not make the most profitable use of his resources. Lately in all industries and particularly during the late World War, which was itself a gigantic industrial process, another factor manifested itself and proved to be of the utmost importance: namely, the human factor, which is not material but is mental, moral, psychological. It has been found that maximum production may be attained when and only when the production is carried on in conformity with certain psychological laws, roughly determined by the analysis of human nature.

Except for productive human labor, our globe is too small to support the human population now upon it. Humanity must produce or perish.

Production is essentially a task for engineers; it essentially depends upon the discovery and the application of natural laws, including the laws of human nature. It is, therefore, not a task for old fashioned philosophical speculation nor for barren metaphysical reasoning in vacuo; it is a scientific task and involves the coordination and cooperation of all the sciences. This is why it is an engineering task.

For engineering, rightly understood, is the coordinated sum-total of human knowledge gathered through the ages, with mathematics as its chief instrument and guide. Human Engineering will embody the theory and practice—the science and [pg 008] art—of all engineering branches united by a common aim—the understanding and welfare of mankind.

Here I want to make it very clear that mathematics is not what many people think it is; it is not a system of mere formulas and theorems; but as beautifully defined by Professor Cassius J. Keyser, in his book The Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking (Columbia University Press, 1916), mathematics is the science of “Exact thought or rigorous thinking,” and one of its distinctive characteristics is “precision, sharpness, completeness of definitions.” This quality alone is sufficient to explain why people generally do not like mathematics and why even some scientists bluntly refuse to have anything to do with problems wherein mathematical reasoning is involved. In the meantime, mathematical philosophy has very little, if anything, to do with mere calculations or with numbers as such or with formulas; it is a philosophy wherein precise, sharp and rigorous thinking is essential. Those who deliberately refuse to think “rigorously”—that is mathematically—in connections where such thinking is possible, commit the sin of preferring the worse to the better; they deliberately violate the supreme law of intellectual rectitude.

Here I have to make it clear that for the purpose of Human Engineering the old concepts of matter, space and time are sufficient to start with; they are [pg 009] sufficient in much the same way as they have been sufficient in the old science of mechanics. Figuratively speaking Human Engineering is a higher order of bridge engineering—it aims at the spanning of a gap in practical life as well as in knowledge. The old meanings of matter, space and time were good enough to prevent the collapse of a bridge; the same understanding of space and time as used in this book will protect society and humanity from periodical collapses. The old mechanics lead directly to such a knowledge of the intrinsic laws governing the universe as to suggest the new mechanics. Human Engineering will throw a new light on many old conceptions and will help the study and understanding of matter, space and time in their relative meanings, and perhaps will ultimately lead to an understanding of their absolute meanings.

Philosophy in its old form could exist only in the absence of engineering, but with engineering in existence and daily more active and far reaching, the old verbalistic philosophy and metaphysics have lost their reason to exist. They were no more able to understand the “production” of the universe and life than they are now able to understand or grapple with “production” as a means to provide a happier existence for humanity. They failed because their venerated method of “speculation” can not produce, and its place must be taken by mathematical thinking. [pg 010] Mathematical reasoning is displacing metaphysical reasoning. Engineering is driving verbalistic philosophy out of existence and humanity gains decidedly thereby. Only a few parasites and “speculators” will mourn the disappearance of their old companion “speculation.” The world of producers—the predominating majority of human beings—will welcome a philosophy of ordered thought and production.

The scientists, all of them, have their duties no doubt, but they do not fully use their education if they do not try to broaden their sense of responsibility toward all mankind instead of closing themselves up in a narrow specialization where they find their pleasure. Neither engineers nor other scientific men have any right to prefer their own personal peace to the happiness of mankind; their place and their duty are in the front line of struggling humanity, not in the unperturbed ranks of those who keep themselves aloof from life. If they are indifferent, or discouraged because they feel or think that they know that the situation is hopeless, it may be proved that undue pessimism is as dangerous a “religion” as any other blind creed. Indeed there is very little difference in kind between the medieval fanaticism of the “holy inquisition,” and modern intolerance toward new ideas. All kinds of intellect must get together, for as long as we presuppose the situation [pg 011] to be hopeless, the situation will indeed be hopeless. The spirit of Human Engineering does not know the word “hopeless;” for engineers know that wrong methods are alone responsible for disastrous results, and that every situation can be successfully handled by the use of proper means. The task of engineering science is not only to know but to know how. Most of the scientists and engineers do not yet realize that their united judgment would be invincible; no system or class would care to disregard it. Their knowledge is the very force which makes the life of humanity pulsate. If the scientists and the engineers have had no common base upon which to unite, a common base must be provided. To-day the pressure of life is such that we cannot go forward without their coordinating guidance. But first there must be the desire to act. One aim of this book is to furnish the required stimulus by showing that Human Engineering will rescue us from the tangle of private opinions and enable us to deal with all the problems of life and human society upon a scientific basis.

If those who know why and how neglect to act, those who do not know will act, and the world will continue to flounder. The whole history of mankind and especially the present plight of the world show only too sadly how dangerous and expensive it is to have the world governed by those who do not know.

In paying the price of this war, we have been made [pg 012] to realize that even the private individual can not afford to live wrapped up in his own life and not take his part in public affairs. He must acquire the habit of taking his share of public responsibility. This signifies that a very great deal of very simple work, all pointing in the direction of a greater work, must be done in the way of educating, not engineers and scientific men only, but the general public to cooperate in establishing the practice of Human Engineering in all the affairs of human society and life.

In writing this book I have had to wrestle with tremendous difficulties in expressing new thoughts and in indicating new methods. The reader who stops to criticize words or expressions because of their more or less happy or unhappy use will miss the whole point of the work. The reading of it should be done with a view to seeing how much can be found in it of what is new and good that may be elaborated further, and put into better form. This new enterprise is too difficult and too vast for the unaided labor of one man—life is too short.

The method used in this book in analysing life phenomena is essentially an engineering method, and as physics and mechanics always suggest to mathematicians new fields for analysis, it is not improbable that Human Engineering will give mathematicians new and interesting fields for research. The humblest rôle of mathematicians in Human Engineering [pg 013] may be likened to that of “Public accountants” who put in order the affairs of business.

In relation to mathematics Bertrand Russell has said: “Logic is the youth of mathematics, mathematics is the manhood of logic.” This brilliant mot of the eminent philosopher of mathematics is no doubt just and is profoundly significant; the least it can teach us is that it is useless to try to find a dividing line between logic and mathematics, for no such line exists; to seek for one serves merely to betray one's ignorance of mathematical philosophy. Elsewhere Mr. Russell says: “The hope of satisfaction to our more human desires, the hope of demonstrating that the world has this or that ethical characteristic, is not one which, so far as I can see, philosophy can do anything whatever to satisfy.” By “philosophy” he means mathematical philosophy—a philosophy that is rigorously scientific, not vaguely speculative. I am entirely unable to agree with him that such a philosophy can make no contribution to ethics. On the contrary, I contend, and in this book I hope to show, that by mathematical philosophy, by rigorously scientific thinking, we can arrive at the true conception of what a human being really is and that in thus discovering the characteristic nature of man we come to the secret and source of ethics. Ethics as a science will investigate and explain the essential nature of man and the obligations which the essential [pg 014] nature of man imposes upon human beings. It will be seen that to live righteously, to live ethically, is to live in accordance with the laws of human nature; and when it is clearly seen that man is a natural being, a part of nature literally, then it will be seen that the laws of human nature—the only possible rules for ethical conduct—are no more supernatural and no more man-made than is the law of gravitation, for example, or any other natural law.

It is no cause for wonder that mathematical thinking should lead to such a result; for Man is a natural being, man's mind is a natural agency, and the results of rigorous thinking, far from being artificial fictions, are natural facts—natural revelations of natural law.

I hope I have not given the impression, by repeated allusion to mathematical science, that this book is to be in any technical sense a mathematical treatise. I have merely wished to indicate that the task is conceived and undertaken in the mathematical spirit, which must be the guiding spirit of Human Engineering; for no thought, if it be non-mathematical in spirit, can be trusted, and, although mathematicians sometimes make mistakes, the spirit of mathematics is always right and always sound.

Whilst I do not intend to trouble the reader with any highly technical mathematical arguments, there are a few simple mathematical considerations which [pg 015] anyone of fair education can understand, which are of exceedingly great importance for our purpose, and to which, therefore, I ask the reader's best attention. One of the ideas is that of an arithmetical progression; another one is that of a geometrical progression. Neither of them involves anything more difficult than the most ordinary arithmetic of the secondary school or the counting house, but it will be seen that they throw a flood of light upon many of the most important human concerns.

Because we are human beings we are all of us interested in what we call progress—progress in law, in government, in jurisprudence, in ethics, in philosophy, in the natural sciences, in economics, in the fine arts, in the practical arts, in the production and distribution of wealth, in all the affairs affecting the welfare of mankind. It is a fact that all these great matters are interdependent and interlocking; it is therefore a fact of the utmost importance that progress in each of the cardinal matters must keep abreast of progress in the other cardinal matters in order to keep a just equilibrium, a proper balance, and so to maintain the integrity and continued prosperity of the whole complex body of our social life; it is a fact, a fact of observation, that in some of the great matters progress proceeds in accordance with one law and one rate of advancement and in others in accordance with a very different law and rate; it is [pg 016] a fact, a fact of observation and sad experience, a fact attested by all history and made evident by reason, that owing to the widely differing laws and rates of progress in the great essential concerns of humanity, the balance and equilibrium among the parts is disturbed, the strain gradually increases until a violent break ensues in the form of social conflicts, insurrections, revolutions and war; it is a fact that the readjustment that follows, as after an earthquake, does indeed establish a kind of new equilibrium, but it is an equilibrium born of violence, and it is destined to be again disturbed periodically without end, unless by some science and art of Human Engineering progress in all the great matters essential to human weal can be made to proceed in accordance with one and the same law having its validity in the nature of man.

Taken in combination, the facts just stated are so extremely important that they deserve to be stated with the utmost emphasis and clarity. To this end I beg the reader to consider very carefully and side by side the two following series of numbers. The first one is a simple geometrical progression—denoted by (GP); the second one is a simple arithmetical progression—denoted by (AP):

GP: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, etc.;
AP: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, etc.

For convenience of comparison I let them begin with the same number and for simplicity I have taken 2 for this initial term; observe that in the (GP) each term is got from the preceding term by multiplying by 2 and that in the (AP) each term is got from its predecessor by adding 2; in the first series the multiplier 2 is called the common ratio and in the second series the repeatedly added 2 is called the common difference; it is again for the convenience of comparison that I have chosen the same number for both common ratio and common difference and for the sake of simplicity that I have taken for this number the easy number 2. Other choices would be logically just as good.

Why have I introduced these two series? Because they serve to illustrate perfectly two widely different laws of progress—two laws representing vastly different rates of growth, increase, or advancement.

Do not fail to observe in this connection the following two facts. One of them is that the magnitude of the terms of any geometric progression whose ratio (no matter how small) is 2 or more will overtake and surpass the magnitude of the corresponding terms of any arithmetical progression, no matter how large the common difference of the latter may be. The other fact to be noted is that the greater the ratio of a geometric progression, the more rapidly do its successive terms increase; so that the [pg 018] terms of one geometric progression may increase a thousand or a million or a billion times faster than the corresponding terms of another geometric progression. As any geometric progression (of ratio equal to 2 or more), no matter how slow, outruns every arithmetic progression, no matter how fast, so one geometric progression may be far swifter than another one of the same type.

To every one it will be obvious that the two progressions differ in pace; and that the difference between their corresponding terms becomes increasingly larger and larger the farther we go; for instance, the sum of the first six terms of the geometrical progression is 126, whereas the sum of the first six terms of the arithmetical progression is only 42, the difference between the two sums being 84; the sum of 8 terms is 510 for the (GP) and 72 for the (AP), the difference between these sums (of only 8 terms each) being 438, already much larger than before; if now we take the sums of the first 10 terms, they will be 2046 and 110 having a difference of 1936; etc., etc.

Consider now any two matters of great importance for human weal—jurisprudence for example, and natural science—or any other two major concerns of humanity. It is as plain as the noon-day sun that, if progress in one of the matters advances according to the law of a geometric progression and [pg 019] the other in accordance with a law of an arithmetical progression, progress in the former matter will very quickly and ever more and more rapidly outstrip progress in the latter, so that, if the two interests involved be interdependent (as they always are), a strain is gradually produced in human affairs, social equilibrium is at length destroyed; there follows a period of readjustment by means of violence and force. It must not be fancied that the case supposed is merely hypothetical. The whole history of mankind and especially the present condition of the world unite in showing that far from being merely hypothetical, the case supposed has always been actual and is actual to-day on a vaster scale than ever before. My contention is that while progress in some of the great matters of human concern has been long proceeding in accordance with the law of a rapidly increasing geometric progression, progress in the other matters of no less importance has advanced only at the rate of an arithmetical progression or at best at the rate of some geometric progression of relatively slow growth. To see it and to understand it we have to pay the small price of a little observation and a little meditation.

Some technological invention is made, like that of a steam engine or a printing press, for example; or some discovery of scientific method, like that of analytical geometry or the infinitesimal calculus; or [pg 020] some discovery of natural law, like that of falling bodies or the Newtonian law of gravitation. What happens? What is the effect upon the progress of knowledge and invention? The effect is stimulation. Each invention leads to new inventions and each discovery to new discoveries; invention breeds invention, science begets science, the children of knowledge produce their kind in larger and larger families; the process goes on from decade to decade, from generation to generation, and the spectacle we behold is that of advancement in scientific knowledge and technological power according to the law and rate of a rapidly increasing geometric progression or logarithmic function.

And now what must we say of the so-called sciences—the pseudo sciences—of ethics and jurisprudence and economics and politics and government? For the answer we have only to open our eyes and behold the world. By virtue of the advancement that has long been going on with ever accelerated logarithmic rapidity in invention, in mathematics, in physics, in chemistry, in biology, in astronomy and in applications of them, time and space and matter have been already conquered to such an extent that our globe, once so seemingly vast, has virtually shrunken to the dimensions of an ancient province; and manifold peoples of divers tongues and traditions and customs and institutions are now constrained [pg 021] to live together as in a single community. There is thus demanded a new ethical wisdom, a new legal wisdom, a new economical wisdom, a new political wisdom, a new wisdom in the affairs of government. For the new visions our anguished times cry aloud but the only answers are reverberated echoes of the wailing cry mingled with the chattering voices of excited public men who know not what to do. Why? What is the explanation? The question is double: Why the disease? And why no remedy at hand? The answer is the same for both. And the answer is that the so-called sciences of ethics and jurisprudence and economics and politics and government have not kept pace with the rapid progress made in the other great affairs of man; they have lagged behind; it is because of their lagging that the world has come to be in so great distress; and it is because of their lagging that they have not now the needed wisdom to effect a cure.

Do you ask why it is that the “social” sciences—the so-called sciences of ethics, etc.—have lagged behind? The answer is not far to seek nor difficult to understand. They have lagged behind, partly because they have been hampered by the traditions and the habits of a bygone world—they have looked backward instead of forward; they have lagged behind, partly because they have depended upon the barren methods of verbalistic philosophy—they [pg 022] have been metaphysical instead of scientific; they have lagged behind, partly because they have been often dominated by the lusts of cunning “politicians” instead of being led by the wisdom of enlightened statesmen; they have lagged behind, partly because they have been predominantly concerned to protect “vested interests,” upon which they have in the main depended for support; the fundamental cause, however, of their lagging behind is found in the astonishing fact that, despite their being by their very nature most immediately concerned with the affairs of mankind, they have not discovered what Man really is but have from time immemorial falsely regarded human beings either as animals or else as combinations of animals and something supernatural. With these two monstrous conceptions of the essential nature of man I shall deal at a later stage of this writing.

At present I am chiefly concerned to drive home the fact that it is the great disparity between the rapid progress of the natural and technological sciences on the one hand and the slow progress of the metaphysical, so-called social “sciences” on the other hand, that sooner or later so disturbs the equilibrium of human affairs as to result periodically in those social cataclysms which we call insurrections, revolutions and wars. The reader should note carefully that such cataclysmic changes—such “jumps,” as we may call them—such violent readjustments [pg 023] in human affairs and human relationships—are recorded throughout the history of mankind. And I would have him see clearly that, because the disparity which produces them increases as we pass from generation to generation—from term to term of our progressions—the “jumps” in question occur not only with increasing violence but with increasing frequency. This highly significant fact may be graphically illustrated in the following figure:

Geometric evolution of the natural and technological sciences.—Peaceful progress.

Arithmetical evolution of the so-called social “sciences,” accelerated by violent “jumps.”—Non-peaceful social progress.

a'2, 2a, ab, bc, cd, represent the geometrical law of progression in the natural and technological sciences (peaceful evolution).

A'2, 2A, AB, CD, EF, represent the lagging arithmetical law of progression in the so-called social sciences (peaceful evolution).

Both of these during the same periods of time.

BC, DE, FG, represent revolutions or wars, with the aftermath of revolution of ideas—the “jump”—violent readjustment of ideas to facts—forced by events.

ab, bc, cd, and AB, CD, EF, take the same amount of time, but the second progression being much slower than the first one, the “jumps” or revolutions occur at shorter intervals as time goes on and thus more frequently force us to coordinate our ideas to facts. Periods of peace or seeming peace alternate more and more frequently with periods of violence; the mentioned disparity of progress in peaceful times is the hatching seed of future violence.[1]

As a matter of fact these few mathematical considerations can hardly be called mathematics or mathematical philosophy; nevertheless, without bringing attention to these very simple mathematical ideas we should not be able to proceed any further than in the past. Our life problems have always been “solved” by verbalists and rhetorical metaphysicians who cleverly played with vague words and who always ignored the supremely important matter of dimensions because they were ignorant of it. There was no possible way to arrive at an agreement on the significance of words, or even the understanding of them. Let us take, for instance, such words as “good” or “bad” or “truth;” volumes upon volumes have been written about them; no one has reached any result universally acceptable; the effect has been to multiply warring schools of philosophy—sectarians and partisans. In the meantime something corresponding to each of the terms “good,” “bad,” “truth” exists as matter of fact; but what that something is still awaits scientific determination. If only these three words could be scientifically defined, philosophy, law, ethics and psychology would cease to be “private theories” or verbalism and they would advance to the rank and dignity of sciences.

Here I may quote a characteristic of life as expressed by one of the “heroes” of my esteemed friend Harvey O'Higgins, in his book, From the [pg 026] Life, Imaginary Portraits of Some Distinguished Americans (Harper, N. Y.).

“Warren never philosophized; he handled facts as an artisan handles his tools; but if he had philosophized, his theory of life would probably have been something like this: ‘There is no justice, there is no morality, in nature or in natural laws; justice and morality are laws only of human society. But society, natural life, and all civilization are subject in their larger aspects to natural laws—which contradict morality and outrage justice—and the statesman has to move with those laws and direct his people in accordance with them, despite the lesser by-laws of morality and justice.’ ”

If such are the creeds of “distinguished people” anywhere, what better can we expect than that which we see in the history of humanity?

But the fact that the old philosophy, law, ethics, psychology, politics and sociology could not solve the practical problems of humanity, is not any reason whatsoever why we should despair. The problems can be solved.

To follow the reasoning of this book, it is not necessary to be a highly trained specialist; the only qualifications required are candor, an open mind, freedom from blinding prejudice, thoughtfulness, a real desire for truth, and enough common sense to understand that to talk of adding three quarts of milk to three-quarters of a mile is to talk nonsense.

Chapter II. Childhood of Humanity

The conclusion of the World War is the closing of the period of the childhood of humanity. This childhood, as any childhood, can be characterized as devoid of any real understanding of values, as is that of a child who uses a priceless chronometer to crack nuts.

This childhood has been unduly long, but happily we are near to the end of it, for humanity, shaken by this war, is coming to its senses and must soon enter its manhood, a period of great achievements and rewards in the new and real sense of values dawning upon us.

The sacred dead will not have died for naught; the “red wine of youth,” the wanton waste of life, has shown us the price of life, and we will have to keep our oath to make the future worthy of their sweat and blood.

Early ideas are not necessarily true ideas.

There are different kinds of interpretations of history and different schools of philosophy. All of them have contributed something to human progress, but none of them has been able to give the world a [pg 028] basic philosophy embracing the whole progress of science and establishing the life of man upon the abiding foundation of Fact.

Our life is bound to develop according to evident or else concealed laws of nature. The evident laws of nature were the inspiration of genuine science in its cradle; and their interpretations or misinterpretations have from the earliest times formed systems of law, of ethics, and of philosophy.

Human intellect, be it that of an individual or that of the race, forms conclusions which have to be often revised before they correspond approximately to facts. What we call progress consists in coordinating ideas with realities. The World War has taught something to everybody. It was indeed a great reality; it accustomed us to think in terms of reality and not in those of phantom speculation. Some unmistakable truths were revealed. Facts and force were the things that counted. Power had to be produced to destroy hostile power; it was found that the old political and economic systems were not adequate to the task put upon them. The world had to create new economic conditions; it was obliged to supplement the old systems with special boards for food, coal, railroads, shipping, labor, etc. The World War emergency compelled the nations to organize for producing greater power in order to conquer power already great.

If there is anything which this war has proved, it is the fact that the most important asset a nation or an individual can have, is the ability “to do things.”

“In Flanders Fields the poppies blow ...,” that is too true; they blow and they are strong and red. But the purpose of this writing is not the celebration of poetry, but the elucidation and right use of facts.

Normally, thousands of rabbits and guinea pigs are used and killed, in scientific laboratories, for experiments which yield great and tangible benefits to humanity. This war butchered millions of people and ruined the health and lives of tens of millions. Is this climax of the pre-war civilization to be passed unnoticed, except for the poetry and the manuring of the battle fields, that the “poppies blow” stronger and better fed? Or is the death of ten men on the battle field to be of as much worth in knowledge gained as is the life of one rabbit killed for experiment? Is the great sacrifice worth analysing? There can be only one answer—yes. But, if truth be desired, the analysis must be scientific.

In science, “opinions” are tolerated when and only when facts are lacking. In this case, we have all the facts necessary. We have only to collect them and analyse them, rejecting mere “opinions” as cheap and unworthy. Such as understand this lesson will know how to act for the benefit of all.

At present the future of mankind is dark. “Stop, look, and listen”—the prudent caution at railroad crossings—must be amended to read “stop, look, listen, and think”; not for the saving of a few lives in railroad accidents, but for the preservation of the life of humanity. Living organisms, of the lower and simpler types, in which the differentiation and the integration of the vital organs have not been carried far, can move about for a considerable time after being deprived of the appliances by which the life force is accumulated and transferred, but higher organisms are instantly killed by the removal of such appliances, or even by the injury of minor parts of them; even more easily destroyed are the more advanced and complicated social organizations.

The first question is: what are to be the scientific methods that will eliminate diverse opinions and creeds from an analysis of facts and ensure correct deductions based upon them? A short survey of facts concerning civilization will help to point the way.

Humanity, in its cradle, did not have science; it had only the faculties of observation and speculation. In the early days there was much speculative thinking, but it was without any sufficient basis of facts. Theology and philosophy flourished; their speculations were often very clever, but all their primitive notions about facts—such as the structure of the [pg 031] heavens, the form of the earth, mechanical principles, meteorological or physiological phenomena—were almost all of them wrong.

What is history? What is its significance for humanity? Dr. J. H. Robinson gives us a precise answer: “Man's abject dependence on the past gives rise to the continuity of history. Our convictions, opinions, prejudices, intellectual tastes; our knowledge, our methods of learning and of applying for information we owe, with slight exceptions, to the past—often to the remote past. History is an expansion of memory, and like memory it alone can explain the present and in this lies its most unmistakable value.”[2]

The savage regards every striking phenomenon or group of phenomena as caused by some personal agent, and from remotest antiquity the mode of thinking has changed only as fast as the relations among phenomena have been established.[3]

Human nature was always asking “why”? and not being able to answer why, they found their answer [pg 033] through another factor “who.” The unknown was called, Gods or God. But with the progress of science the “why” became more and more evident, and the question came to be “how.” From the early days of humanity, dogmatic theology, law, ethics, and science in its infancy, were the monopolies of one class and the source of their power.[4]

The first to break this power were the exact sciences. They progressed too rapidly to be bound and limited by obscure old writings and prejudices; life and realities were their domain. Science brushed aside all sophistry and became a reality. Ethics is too fundamentally important a factor in civilization to depend upon a theological or a legal excuse; [pg 035] ethics must conform to the natural laws of human nature.

Laws, legal ideas, date from the beginning of civilization. Legal speculation was wonderfully developed in parallel lines with theology and philosophy before the natural and exact sciences came into existence. Law was always made by the few and in general for the purpose of preserving the “existing order,” or for the reestablishment of the old order and the punishment of the offenders against it.

Dogmatic theology is, by its very nature, unchangeable. The same can be said in regard to the spirit of the law. Law was and is to protect the past and present status of society and, by its very essence, must be very conservative, if not reactionary. Theology and law are both of them static by their nature.[5]

Philosophy, law and ethics, to be effective in a dynamic world must be dynamic; they must be made vital enough to keep pace with the progress of life and science. In recent civilization ethics, because controlled by theology and law, which are static, could not duly influence the dynamic, revolutionary progress of technic and the steadily changing conditions of life; and so we witness a tremendous downfall of morals in politics and business. Life progresses faster than our ideas, and so medieval ideas, methods and judgments are constantly applied to the conditions and problems of modern life. This discrepancy between facts and ideas is greatly responsible for the dividing of modern society into different warring classes, which do not understand each other. Medieval legalism and medieval morals—the basis of the old social structure—being by their nature conservative, reactionary, opposed to change, and thus becoming more and more unable to support the mighty social burden of the modern world, must be adjudged responsible in a large measure for the circumstances which made the World War inevitable.

Under the flash of explosives some of the workings of those antiquated ideas were exposed or crushed. The World War has profoundly changed economic conditions and made it necessary to erect new standards of values. We are forced to realize that evolution by transformation is a cosmic process [pg 037] and that reaction, though it may retard it, can not entirely stop it.[6]

The idea that organic species are results of special creation has no scientific standard whatever. There is not one fact tending to prove special or separate creation; the evidence, which is overwhelming, is all of it on the other side. The hypothesis of special creation is a mere fossil of the past. Evolution is the only theory which is in harmony with facts and with all branches of science: life is dynamic, not static.

Philosophy, as defined by Fichte, is the “science of sciences.” Its aim was to solve the problems of the world. In the past, when all exact sciences were in their infancy, philosophy had to be purely speculative, with little or no regard to realities. But if [pg 038] we regard philosophy as a Mother science, divided into many branches, we find that those branches have grown so large and various, that the Mother science looks like a hen with her little ducklings paddling in a pond, far beyond her reach; she is unable to follow her growing hatchlings. In the meantime, the progress of life and science goes on, irrespective of the cackling of metaphysics. Philosophy does not fulfill her initial aim to bring the results of experimental and exact sciences together and to solve world problems. Through endless, scientific specialization scientific branches multiply, and for want of coordination the great world-problems suffer. This failure of philosophy to fulfill her boasted mission of scientific coordination is responsible for the chaos in the world of general thought. The world has no collective or organized higher ideals and aims, nor even fixed general purposes. Life is an accidental game of private or collective ambitions and greeds.[7]

Systematic study of chemical and physical phenomena has been carried on for many generations and these two sciences now include: (1) knowledge of an enormous number of facts; (2) a large body of natural laws; (3) many fertile working hypotheses respecting the causes and regularities of natural phenomena; and finally (4) many helpful theories held subject to correction by further testing of the hypotheses giving rise to them. When a subject is spoken of as a science, it is understood to include all of the above mentioned parts. Facts alone do not constitute a science any more than a pile of stones constitutes a house, not even do facts and laws alone; there must be facts, hypotheses, theories and laws before the subject is entitled to the rank of a science.

The primal function of a science is to enable us to anticipate the future in the field to which it relates. [pg 040] Judged by this standard, neither philosophy nor its kindred—the so-called social sciences—have in the past been very effective. There was, for example, no official warning of the coming of the World War—the greatest of catastrophes. The future was not anticipated because political philosophers did not possess the necessary basis of knowledge. To be just we must admit that philosophy has been but little aided financially because it is commonly regarded as unnecessary. The technical branches of science have been strongly backed and generally supported by those to whom they have brought direct profit; and so they have had better opportunities for development.

Ethics in the stifling grip of myth and legalism is not convincing enough to exercise controlling influence. Such is the situation in which we find ourselves. Being still in our childhood and thinking like savages, we looked upon the World War as a personal creation of a “war-lord,” because those interested in it told us so. We neglected to use our common sense and look deeper into its origins; to perform for ourselves the duty which political philosophy did not perform for us—the duty of thinking in terms of facts and not in terms of metaphysical speculations. Knowledge of facts would have told us that the war lords were only the representatives of the ruling classes. A system of social [pg 041] and economic order built exclusively on selfishness, greed, “survival of the fittest,” and ruthless competition, must cease to exist, or exist by means of war. The representatives of this system determined to continue to exist, and so war was the consequence. The ruling classes carried the whole system under which they lived to its logical conclusion and natural issue, which is “grab what you can.” This motto is not peculiar to any one country; it is the motto of our whole civilization and is the inevitable outcome of our stupid philosophy regarding the characteristic nature of man and the proper potentialities of human life. Where are we to find the true doctrines? Where the true philosophy? If we go back over the history of civilization, we find that in all “sciences,” except the exact ones, private opinions and theories have shaped our beliefs, colored our mental processes and controlled our destinies; we see, for example, pessimism opposed to optimism, materialism to spiritualism, realism to idealism, capitalism to socialism, and so on endlessly. Each of the disputatious systems has a large number of followers and each faction looks upon the others as deprived of truth, common sense and knowledge. All of them play with the words “natural law” which they ignorantly presume to have as the basis and content of their own particular doctrine.

It is the same in the realm of religions; there are [pg 042] approximately 291 million Confucianists, or Taoists, 261 million Roman Catholics, 211 million Mohammedans, 209 million Hindus, 177 million Protestants, 157 million Animists, 137 million Buddhists, 115 million Orthodox Christians—to speak only of the most important religions. Each group, and they are rather large groups, believes its theory or its faith to be infallible and all the others to be false.

Bacon seems a bit remote, but the idols and medieval fetishes which he so masterfully describes are equally venerated to-day.

(Novum Organum, by Francis Bacon.)

34. “Four species of idols beset the human mind, to which (for distinction's sake) we have assigned names, calling the first Idols of the Tribe, the second Idols of the Den, the third Idols of the Market, the fourth Idols of the Theatre.

40. “The information of notions and axioms on the foundation of true induction is the only fitting remedy by which we can ward off and expel these idols. It is, however, of great service to point them out; for the doctrine of idols bears the same relation to the interpretation of nature as that of the confutation of sophisms does to common logic.

41. “The idols of the tribe are inherent in human nature and the very tribe or race of man; for man's sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of things; on the contrary, all the perceptions both of the senses and the mind bear reference to man and not to the Universe, and the human mind resembles these uneven mirrors which impart their own properties to different objects, from which rays are emitted and distort and disfigure them.

42. “The idols of the den are those of each individual; for everybody (in addition to the errors common to the race [pg 043] of man) has his own individual den or cavern, which intercepts and corrupts the light of nature, either from his own peculiar and singular disposition, or from his education and intercourse with others, or from his reading, and the authority acquired by those whom he reverences and admires, or from the different impressions produced on the mind, as it happens to be preoccupied and predisposed, or equable and tranquil, and the like; so that the spirit of man (according to its several dispositions), is variable, confused, and, as it were, actuated by chance; and Heraclitus said well that men search for knowledge in lesser worlds, and not in the greater or common world.

43. “There are also idols formed by the reciprocal intercourse and society of man with man, which we call idols of the market, from the commerce and association of men with each other; for men converse by means of language, but words are formed at the will of the generality, and there arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind. Nor can the definitions and explanations with which learned men are wont to guard and protect themselves in some instances afford a complete remedy—words still manifestly force the understanding, throw everything into confusion, and lead mankind into vain and innumerable controversies and fallacies.

44. “Lastly, there are idols which have crept into men's minds from the various dogmas of peculiar systems of philosophy, and also from the perverted rules of demonstration, and these we denominate idols of the theatre: for we regard all the systems of philosophy hitherto received or imagined, as so many plays brought out and performed, creating fictitious and theatrical worlds. Nor do we speak only of the present systems, or of the philosophy and sects of the ancients, since numerous other plays of a similar nature can be still composed and made to agree with each other, the causes of the most opposite errors being generally the same. Nor, [pg 044] again, do we allude merely to general systems, but also to many elements and axioms of sciences which have become inveterate by tradition, implicit credence, and neglect.”[8]

Metaphysical speculation and its swarming progeny of blind and selfish political philosophies, private opinions, private “truths,” and private doctrines, sectarian opinions, sectarian “truths” and sectarian doctrines, querulous, confused and blind—such is characteristic of the childhood of humanity. The period of humanity's manhood will, I doubt not, be a scientific period—a period that will witness the gradual extension of scientific method to all the interests [pg 045] of mankind—a period in which man will discover the essential nature of man and establish, at length, the science and art of directing human energies and human capacities to the advancement of human weal in accordance with the laws of human nature.

Chapter III. Classes of Life

The problems to be dealt with in this chapter are not easy, but they are exceedingly important. To classify phenomena correctly, they must be correctly analysed and clearly defined. For the sake of clearness I will use the simplest illustrations and, avoiding as much as possible the difficulties of technical terms, will use language easily to be understood by every one. In some cases the words will indeed have a technical meaning and it will be necessary to exercise great care against the danger of giving false impressions; for clear ideas are essential to sound thinking. As a matter of fact our common daily speech is ill adapted for the precise expression of thought; even so-called “scientific” language is often too vague for the purpose and requires further refining. Some may say that it is useless and unnecessary to lay so much stress on correct thinking and precise expression; that it has no practical value; for they say that “business” language is good enough to “talk business,” or to put “something over” the other fellow. But a little explanation will show that precision is often of the greatest importance.

Humanity is a peculiar class of life which, in some degree, determines its own destinies; therefore in practical life words and ideas become facts—facts, moreover, which bring about important practical consequences. For instance, many millions of human beings have defined a stroke of lightning as being the “punishment of God” of evil men; other millions have defined it as a “natural, casual, periodical phenomenon”; yet other millions have defined it as an “electric spark.” What has been the result of these “non-important” definitions in practical life? In the case of the first definition, when lightning struck a house, the population naturally made no attempt to save the house or anything in it, because to do so would be against the “definition” which proclaims the phenomenon to be a “punishment for evil,” any attempt to prevent or check the destruction would be an impious act; the sinner would be guilty of “resisting the supreme law” and would deserve to be punished by death.

Now in the second instance, a stricken building is treated just as any tree overturned by storm; the people save what they can and try to extinguish the fire. In both instances, the behavior of the populace is the same in one respect; if caught in the open by a storm they take refuge under a tree—a means of safety involving maximum danger but the people do not know it.

Now in the third instance, in which the population have a scientifically correct definition of lightning, they provide their houses with lightning rods; and if they are caught by a storm in the open they neither run nor hide under a tree; but when the storm is directly over their heads, they put themselves in a position of minimum exposure by lying flat on the ground until the storm has passed.

Such examples could be given without end, but there is another example of sufficient vital importance to be given here, as it has to do with our conception of the social and economic system, and the state. If our institutions are considered “God-given”—sacred and therefore static—every reformer or advocate of change should be treated as a criminal or “a danger to the existing order” and hanged or at least put in jail for life. But now, if our institutions are “man made,” imperfect and often foolish, and subject to change all the time steadily and dynamically in obedience to some known or unknown law; then of course all reactionaries would be a “danger to the natural order” and they should be treated the same way. The importance of definitions can be seen in all other fields of practical life; definitions create conditions. To know the world in which we live, we have to analyse facts by help of such facts as we know in daily practice and such facts as are established in scientific laboratories where men [pg 049] do not jump to conclusions. In some places it will be necessary to make statements that will have to await full justification at a later stage of the discussion. This will be necessary to indicate the trend of the analysis.

The aim of the analysis is to give us just conceptions, correct definitions, and true propositions. The process is slow, progressive, and endless. The problems are infinitely many, and it is necessary to select. Fortunately the solution of a few leads automatically to the solution of many others. Some of the greatest and most far-reaching scientific discoveries have been nothing else than a few correct definitions, a few just concepts and a few true propositions. Such, for example, was the work of Euclid, Newton and Leibnitz—a few correct definitions, a few just concepts, a few true propositions; but these have been extended and multiplied, sometimes by men of creative genius, and often almost automatically by men of merely good sense and fair talent.

The matter of definition, I have said, is very important. I am not now speaking of nominal definitions, which for convenience merely give names to known objects. I am speaking of such definitions of phenomena as result from correct analysis of the phenomena. Nominal definitions are mere conveniences and are neither true nor false; but analytic definitions are definitive propositions and are true [pg 050] or else false. Let us dwell upon the matter a little more.

In the illustration of the definitions of lightning, there were three; the first was the most mistaken and its application brought the most harm; the second was less incorrect and the practical results less bad; the third under the present conditions of our knowledge, was the “true one” and it brought the maximum benefit. This lightning illustration suggests the important idea of relative truth and relative falsehood—the idea, that is, of degrees of truth and degrees of falsehood. A definition may be neither absolutely true nor absolutely false; but of two definitions of the same thing, one of them may be truer or falser than the other.

If, for illustration's sake, we call the first “truth” A, (alpha 1), the second one A2 (alpha 2), the third one A3 (alpha 3), we may suppose that a genius appears who has the faculty to surpass all the other relative truths A1, A2, A3, ... An and gives us an absolute or final truth, valid in infinity (Ainfinity) say a final definition, that lightning is so ... and so ..., a kind of energy which flows, let us say, through a glass tube filled with charcoal. Then of course this definition would immediately make obvious what use could be made of it. We could erect glass towers filled with charcoal and so secure an unlimited flow of available free energy and our [pg 051] whole life would be affected in an untold degree. This example explains the importance of correct definitions.

But to take another example: there is such a thing as a phenomenon called the “color” red. Imagine how it might be defined. A reactionary would call it a “Bolshevik” (A1); a Bolshevik would say “My color” (A2); a color-blind person would say “such a thing does not exist” (A3); a Daltonist would say “that is green” (A4); a metaphysician would say “that is the soul of whiskey” (A5); an historian would say “that is the color of the ink with which human history has been written” (A6); an uneducated person would say “that is the color of blood” (A7); the modern scientist would say “it is the light of such and such wave length” (A8). If this last definition be “valid in infinity” or not we do not know, but it is, nevertheless, a “scientific truth” in the present condition of our knowledge.

This final but unknown “truth valid in infinity” is somehow perceived or felt by us as an ideal, for in countless years of observation we have formed a series of less and less false, more and more nearly true “ideas” about the phenomenon. The “ideas” are reflexes of the phenomenon, reflected in our midst as in a mirror; the reflexes may be distorted, as in a convex or concave mirror, but they suggest [pg 052] an ideal reflex valid in infinity. It is of the utmost importance to realize that the words which are used to express the ideas and the ideals are the materialization of the ideas and ideal; it is only by words that we are enabled to give to other human beings an exact or nearly exact impression which we have had of the phenomenon.

It may be helpful to illustrate this process by an example. Let us suppose that a man makes an experiment of doing his own portrait from a mirror, which may be plane, concave or convex. If he looks into a plane mirror, he will see his true likeness; even so, if he be a poor designer, he will draw the likeness badly. Let us suppose that the man has beautiful features but because the drawing is very poor, it will not convey the impression that the features of the original were beautiful. If this poor designer were to look into and work from a concave or convex mirror, the drawing of his likeness would have practically no resemblance to his original features.

For correct analysis and true definitions of the cardinal classes of life in our world it is necessary to have some just ideas about dimensions or dimensionality. The Britannica gives us some help in this connection. I will explain briefly by an example. Measurable entities of different kinds can not be compared directly. Each one must be measured in [pg 053] terms of a unit of its own kind. A line can have only length and therefore is of one dimension: a surface has length and width and is therefore said to have two dimensions; a volume has length, width and thickness and is, therefore, said to have three dimensions. If we take, for example, a volume—say a cube—we see that the cube has surfaces and lines and points, but a volume is not a surface nor a line nor a point. Just these dimensional differences have an enormous unrealized importance in practical life, as in the case of taking a line of five units of length and building upon it a square, the measure of this square (surface) will not be 5, it will be 25; and the 25 will not be 25 linear units but 25 square or surface units. If upon this square we build a cube, this cube will have neither 5 nor 25 for its measure; it will have 125, and this number will not be so many units of length nor of surface but so many solid or cubic units.

It is as plain as a pike staff that, if we confused dimensions when computing lengths and areas and volumes, we would wreck all the architectural and engineering structures of the world, and at the same time show ourselves stupider than block-heads.

To analyse the classes of life we have to consider two very different kinds of phenomena: the one embraced under the collective name—Inorganic chemistry—the other under the collective name—Organic [pg 054] chemistry, or the chemistry of hydro-carbons. These divisions are made because of the peculiar properties of the elements chiefly involved in the second class. The properties of matter are so distributed among the elements that three of them—Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Carbon—possess an ensemble of unique characteristics. The number of reactions in inorganic chemistry are relatively few, but in organic chemistry—in the chemistry of these three elements the number of different compounds is practically unlimited. Up to 1910, we knew of more than 79 elements of which the whole number of reactions amounted to only a few hundreds, but among the remaining three elements—Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen—the reactions were known to be practically unlimited in number and possibilities; this fact must have very far reaching consequences. As far as energies are concerned, we have to take them as nature reveals them to us. Here more than ever, mathematical thinking is essential and will help enormously. The reactions in inorganic chemistry always involve the phenomenon of heat, sometimes light, and in some instances an unusual energy is produced called electricity. Until now, the radioactive elements represent a group too insufficiently known for an enlargement here upon this subject.

The organic compounds being unlimited in number and possibilities and with their unique characteristics, [pg 055] represent of course, a different class of phenomena, but being, at the same time, chemical they include the basic chemical phenomena involved in all chemical reactions, but being unique in many other respects, they also have an infinitely vast field of unique characteristics. Among the energetic phenomena of organic chemistry, besides the few mentioned above there are new and unique energetic phenomena occurring in this dimension.

Of these phenomena, mention may be made of the phenomenon “life,” the phenomenon of the “instincts” and of the “mind” in general. These energetic phenomena are unique for the unique chemistry of the three unique elements. It is obvious that this “uniqueness” is the reason why these phenomena must be classified as belonging to or having a higher dimensionality than belongs to the phenomena of inorganic chemistry just as the uniqueness of the properties of a volume as compared with surface properties depends upon the fact that a volume has a higher dimensionality than a surface. Just as this difference of dimensions makes the whole difference between the geometry of volumes and the geometry of surfaces, the difference between the two chemistries involves a difference of dimensionality.

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.

The humans, with their “autonomous” capacity to grow, to be active in space and to be active in time, by the three dimensional region MAPH.

Such diagrammatic illustrations must not be taken too literally; they are like figures of speech—helpful if understood—harmful if not understood. The reader should reflect upon the simple idea of dimensions [pg 062] until he sees clearly that the idea is not merely a thing of interest or of convenience, but is absolutely essential as a means of discriminating the cardinal classes of life from one another and of conceiving each class to be what it is instead of mixing it confusedly with something radically different. It will greatly help the reader if he will retire to the quiet of his cloister and there meditate about as follows. A line has one dimension; a plane has two; a plane contains lines and so it has line properties—one-dimensional properties—but it has other properties—two-dimensional properties—and it is these that are peculiar to it, give it its own character, and make it what it is—a plane and not a line. So animals have some plant properties—they grow, for example—but animals have other properties—autonomous mobility, for example,—properties of higher dimensionality or type—and it is these that make animals animals and not plants. Just so, human beings have certain animal properties—autonomous mobility, for example, or physical appetites—but humans have other properties or propensities—ethical sense, for example, logical sense, inventiveness, progressiveness—properties or propensities of higher dimensionality, level, or type—and it is these propensities and powers that make human beings human and not animal. When and only when this fact is clearly seen and [pg 063] keenly realized, there will begin the science of man—the science and art of human nature—for then and only then we shall begin to escape from the age-long untold immeasurable evils that come from regarding and treating human beings as animals, as mere binders of space, and we may look forward to an ethics, a jurisprudence and economics, a governance—a science and art of human life and society—based upon the laws of human nature because based upon the just conception of humanity as the time-binding class of life, creators and improvers of good, destined to endless advancement, in accord with the potencies of Human Nature.[9]

Humanity is still in its childhood; we have “bound” so little time in the course of the centuries, which are so brief in the scheme of the universe. At the bottom of every human activity, historical fact or trend of civilization, there lies some doctrine or conception of so-called “truth.” Apples had fallen from trees for ages, but without any important results in the economy of humanity. The fact that a fallen apple hit Newton, led to the discovery of the theory of gravitation; this changed our whole world conception, our sciences and our activities; it powerfully stimulated the development of all the branches of natural and technological knowledge. Even in the event of the Newtonian laws being proved to be not quite correct, they have served a great purpose in enabling us to understand natural phenomena in a sufficiently approximate way to make it possible to build up modern technology and to develop our physical science to the point where it was necessary and possible to make a correction of the Newtonian laws.

A similar organic change in our conception of human life and its phenomena is involved in the foregoing definitions of the classes of life; they will replace basic errors with scientific truths of fundamental [pg 065] importance; they will form the basis for scientific development of a permanent civilization in place of the periodically convulsive so-called civilizations of the past and present. To know the cause of evil and error is to find the cure.

Chapter IV. What Is Man?

Man has ever been the greatest puzzle to man. There are many and important reasons for this fact. As the subject of this book is not a theoretical, academic study of man, of which too many have already been written, I will not recount the reasons, but will confine myself to the more pressing matters of the task in hand, which is that of pointing the way to the science and art of Human Engineering. The two facts which have to be dealt with first, are the two which have most retarded human progress: (1) there has never been a true definition of man nor a just conception of his rôle in the curious drama of the world; in consequence of which there has never been a proper principle or starting point for a science of humanity. It has never been realized that man is a being of a dimension or type different from that of animals and the characteristic nature of man has not been understood; (2) man has always been regarded either as an animal or as a supernatural phenomenon. The facts are that man is not supernatural but is literally a part of nature [pg 067] and that human beings are not animals. We have seen that the animals are truly characterized by their autonomous mobility—their space-binding capacity—animals are space-binders. We have seen that human beings are characterized by their creative power, by the power to make the past live in the present and the present for the future, by their capacity to bind time—human beings are time-binders. These concepts are basic and impersonal; arrived at mathematically, they are mathematically correct.

It does not matter at all how the first man, the first time-binder, was produced; the fact remains that he was somewhere, somehow produced. To know anything that is to-day of fundamental interest about man, we have to analyse man in three coordinates—in three capacities; namely, his chemistry, his activities in space, and especially his activities in time; whereas in the study of animals we have to consider only two factors: their chemistry and their activities in space.

Let us imagine that the aboriginal—original human specimen was one of two brother apes, A and B; they were alike in every respect; both were animal space-binders; but something strange happened to B; he became the first time-binder, a human. No matter how, this “something” made the change in him that lifted him to a higher dimension; it is enough that in some-wise, over and above [pg 068] his animal capacity for binding space, there was superadded the marvelous new capacity for binding-time. He had thus a new faculty, he belonged to a new dimension; but, of course, he did not realize it; and because he had this new capacity he was able to analyze his brother “A”; he observed “A is my brother; he is an animal; but he is my brother; therefore, I am an animal.” This fatal first conclusion, reached by false analogy, by neglecting a fact, has been the chief source of human woe for half a million years and it still survives. The time-binding capacity, first manifest in B, increased more and more, with the days and each generation, until in the course of centuries man felt himself increasingly somehow different from the animal, but he could not explain. He said to himself, “If I am an animal there is also in me something higher, a spark of some thing supernatural.”

With this conclusion he estranged himself, as something apart from nature, and formulated the impasse, which put him in a cul-de-sac of a double life. He was neither true to the “supernatural” which he could not know and therefore, could not emulate, nor was he true to the “animal” which he scorned. Having put himself outside the “natural laws,” he was not really true to any law and condemned himself to a life of hypocrisy, and established speculative, artificial, unnatural laws.

“How blind our familiar assumptions make us! Among the animals, man, at least, has long been wont to regard himself as a being quite apart from and not as part of the cosmos round about him. From this he has detached himself in thought, he has estranged and objectified the world, and lost the sense that he is of it. And this age-long habit and point of view, which has fashioned his life and controlled his thought, lending its characteristic mark and color to his whole philosophy and art and learning, is still maintained, partly because of its convenience, no doubt, and partly by force of inertia and sheer conservatism, in the very teeth of the strongest probabilities of biological science. Probably no other single hypothesis has less to recommend it, and yet no other so completely dominates the human mind.” (Cassius J. Keyser, loc. cit.) And this monstrous conception is current to-day: millions still look upon man as a mixture of animal and something supernatural.

There is no doubt that the engineering of human society is a difficult and complicated problem of tremendous ethical responsibility, for it involves the welfare of mankind throughout an unending succession of generations. The science of Human Engineering can not be built upon false conceptions of human nature. It can not be built on the conception of man as a kind of animal; it can not be [pg 070] built on the conception of man as a mixture of natural and supernatural. It must be built upon the conception of man as being at once natural and higher in dimensionality than the animals. It must be built upon the scientific conception of mankind as characterized by their time-binding capacity and function. This conception radically alters our whole view of human life, human society, and the world.

It must be obvious to any one that time-binding is the only natural criterion and standard for the time-binding class of life. This mighty term—time-binding—when comprehended, will be found to embrace the whole of the natural laws, the natural ethics, the natural philosophy, the natural sociology, the natural economics, the natural governance, to be brought into the education of time-binders; then really peaceful and progressive civilization, without periodical collapses and violent readjustments, will commence; not before. Everything which is really “time-binding” is in the human dimension; therefore, it will represent every quality that is implied in such words as—good, just, right, beautiful; while everything that is merely space-binding will be classified as “animal” and be thus assessed at its proper value. Those ignorant “masters of our destinies” who regard humans as animals or as monstrous hybrids of natural and supernatural must be dethroned by scientific education.

Humans can be literally poisoned by false ideas and false teachings. Many people have a just horror at the thought of putting poison into tea or coffee, but seem unable to realize that, when they teach false ideas and false doctrines, they are poisoning the time-binding capacity of their fellow men and women. One has to stop and think! There is nothing mystical about the fact that ideas and words are energies which powerfully affect the physico-chemical base of our time-binding activities. Humans are thus made untrue to “human nature.” Hypnotism is a known fact. It has been proved that a man can be so hypnotized that in a certain time which has been suggested to him, he will murder or commit arson or theft; that, under hypnotic influence, the personal morale of the individual has only a small influence upon his conduct; the subject obeys the hypnotic suggestions, no matter how immoral they are. The conception of man as a mixture of animal and supernatural has for ages kept human beings under the deadly spell of the suggestion that, animal selfishness and animal greediness are their essential character, and the spell has operated to suppress their real human nature and to prevent it from expressing itself naturally and freely.

On the other hand, when human beings are educated to a lively realization that they are by nature time-binding creatures, then they will spontaneously [pg 072] live in accordance with their time-binding nature, which, as I have said, is the source and support of the highest ideals.

What is achieved in blaming a man for being selfish and greedy if he acts under the influence of a social environment and education which teach him that he is an animal and that selfishness and greediness are of the essence of his nature?

Even so eminent a philosopher and psychologist as Spencer tells us: “Of self-evident truths so dealt with, the one which here concerns us is that a creature must live before it can act ... Ethics has to recognize the truth that egoism comes before altruism.” This is true for animals, because animals die out from lack of food when their natural supply of it is insufficient because they have not the capacity to produce artificially. But it is not true for the human dimension.

Why not? Because humans through their time-binding capacity are first of all creators and so their number is not controlled by the supply of unaided nature, but only by men's artificial productivity, which is the materialization of their time-binding capacity

Man, therefore, by the very intrinsic character of his being, must act first, in order to be able to live (through the action of parents—or society) which is not the case with animals. The misunderstanding [pg 073] of this simple truth is largely accountable for the evil of our ethical and economic systems or lack of systems. As a matter of fact, if humanity were to live in complete accord with the animal conception of man, artificial production—time-binding production—would cease and ninety per cent of mankind would perish by starvation. It is just because human beings are not animals but are time-binders—not mere finders but creators of food and shelter—that they are able to live in such vast numbers.

Here even the blind must see the effect of higher dimensionality, and this effect becomes in turn the cause of other effects which produce still others, and so on in an endless chain. we live because we produce, because we are acting in time and are not merely acting in space—because man is not a kind of animal. It is all so simple, if only we apply a little sound logic in our thinking about human nature and human affairs. If human ethics are to be human, are to be in the human dimension, the postulates of ethics must be changed; for humanity in order to live must act first; the laws of ethics—the laws of right living—are natural laws—laws of human nature—laws having their whole source and sanction in the time-binding capacity and time-binding activity peculiar to man. Human excellence is excellence in time-binding, and [pg 074] must be measured and rewarded by time-binding standards of worth.

Humanity, in order to live, must produce creatively and therefore must be guided by applied science, by technology; and this means that the so-called social sciences of ethics, jurisprudence, psychology, economics, sociology, politics, and government must be emancipated from medieval metaphysics; they must be made scientific; they must be technologized; they must be made to progress and to function in the proper dimension—the human dimension and not that of animals: they must be made time-binding sciences.

Can this be done? I have no doubt that it can. For what is human life after all?

To a general in the battlefield, human life is a factor which, if properly used, can destroy the enemy. To an engineer human life is an equivalent to energy, or a capacity to do work, mental or muscular, and the moment something is found to be a source of energy and to have the capacity of doing work, the first thing to do, from the engineer's point of view, is to analyse the generator with a view to discovering how best to conserve it, to improve it, and bring it to the level of maximum productivity. Human beings are very complicated energy-producing batteries differing widely in quality and magnitude of productive power. Experience has shown [pg 075] that these batteries are, first of all, chemical batteries producing a mysterious energy. If these batteries are not supplied periodically with a more or less constant quantity of some chemical elements called food and air, the batteries will cease to function—they will die. In the examination of the structure of these batteries we find that the chemical base is very much accentuated all through the structure. This chemical generator is divided into branches each of which has a very different rôle which it must perform in harmony with all the others. The mechanical parts of the structure are built in conformity to the rules of mechanics and are automatically furnished with lubrication and with chemical supplies for automatically renewing worn-out parts. The chemical processes not only deposit particles of mass for the structure of the generator but produce some very powerful unknown kinds of energies or vibrations which make all the chemical parts function; we find also a mysterious apparatus with a complex of wires which we call brain glands, and nerves; and, finally, these human batteries have the remarkable capacity of reproduction.

These functions are familiar to everybody. From the knowledge of other physical, mechanical and chemical phenomena of nature, we must come to the conclusion, that this human battery is the most perfect example of a complex engine; it has all the [pg 076] peculiarities of a chemical battery combined with a generator of a peculiar energy called life; above all, it has mental or spiritual capacities; it is thus equipped with both mental and mechanical means for producing work. The parts and functions of this marvelous engine have been the subject of a vast amount of research in various special branches of science. A very noteworthy fact is that both the physical work and the mental work of this human engine are always accompanied by both physical and chemical changes in the structure of its machinery—corresponding to the wear and tear of non-living engines. It also presents certain sexual and spiritual phenomena that have a striking likeness to certain phenomena, especially wireless phenomena, to electricity and to radium. This human engine-battery is of unusual strength, durability and perfection; and yet it is very liable to damage and even wreckage, if not properly used. The controlling factors are very delicate and so the engine is very capricious. Very special training and understanding are necessary for its control.

The reader may wish to ask: What is the essence of the time-binding power of Man? Talk of essences is metaphysical—it is not scientific. Let me explain by an example.

What is electricity? The scientific answer is: electricity is that which exhibits such and such phenomena. [pg 077] Electricity means nothing but a certain group of phenomena called electric. We are studying electricity when we are studying those phenomena. Thus it is in physics—there is no talk of essences. So, too, in Human Engineering—we shall not talk of the essence of time-binding but only of the phenomena and the laws thereof. What has led to the development of electric appliances is knowledge of electrical phenomena—not metaphysical talk about the electrical essence. And what will lead to the science and art of Human Engineering is knowledge of time-binding phenomena—not vain babble about an essence of time-binding power. There is no mystery about the word time-binding. Some descriptive term was necessary to indicate that human capacity which discriminates human beings from animals and marks man as man. For that use—the appropriateness of the term time-binding becomes more and more manifest upon reflection.

What are the conditions of life upon this earth? Is there war or peace in daily life? All living beings require food; they multiply in a geometrical ratio; and so the natural productivity of the soil becomes increasingly inadequate. The tendency to increase in geometrical ratio is true of all life—vegetable, animal and human, but the tendency is checked by various counteracting influences, natural and artificial. A short time ago these checks had so operated [pg 078] to annul the law of increase as almost to stop the growth of human population. It is only by the time-binding capacity of man—by scientific progress and technological invention—that the checks have been overcome. And so in the last century the population of Europe increased more than it had increased in several centuries before. Impoverished soil, excessive heat or cold, excessive moisture, the lack of rain-fall, and many other factors are hostile to life. It is evident, therefore, that human life must especially struggle for existence; it must carry on a perpetual contest for self preservation. It seems obvious that, if there is perpetual war in every-day life, war methods must be applied.

We have just passed through a tremendous world-wide military war and we developed special ways of producing power to overcome the enemy. We were thus driven to discover some of the hidden sources of power and all of our old habits and ideas were bent toward military methods and military technology. The war of every-day life against hostile elements is war for the subjugation of physical nature and not for the conquest of people. It is a war carried on by the time-binding power of men pitted against natural obstacles, and its progressive triumph means progressive advancement in human weal.

The lesson of the World War should not be [pg 079] missed through failure to analyse it. When nations war with nations, the normal daily war of millions and millions of individuals to subjugate natural resources to human uses is interrupted, and the slow-gathered fruits of measureless toil are destroyed.

But peaceful war, war for the conquest of nature, involves the use of methods of technology and, what is even more important, technological philosophy, law and ethics.

What I want to emphasize in this little book, is the need of a thoroughgoing revision of our ideas; and the revision must be made by engineering minds in order that our ideas may be made to match facts. If we are ill, we consult a physician or a surgeon, not a charlatan. We must learn that, when there is trouble with the producing power of the world, we have to consult an engineer, an expert on power. Politicians, diplomats, and lawyers do not understand the problem. What I am advocating is that we must learn to ask those who know how to produce things, instead of asking those whose profession is to fight for the division of things produced by nature or by other human beings.

As a matter of fact our civilization has been for a long time disorganized to the point of disease. Lately through the whirl of changing conditions, due to the great release of power in the new-born giant technology, the disorganization has become acute. [pg 080] The sick seldom know the cure for themselves. If the cure is to be enduring, we have to go to the source, and this can be done only by men familiar, not only with effects but also with the causes.

Money is not the wealth of a nation, but production is wealth; so ordered production is the main object for humanity. But to have the maximum of production, it is necessary to have production put on a sound basis. No mere preaching of brotherly love, or class hatred, will produce one single brick for the building of the future temple of human victory—the temple of human civilization. Ordered production demands analysis of basic facts.

This era is essentially an industrial era. To produce we have to have: (1) raw material or soil; (2) instruments for production—tools and machines; and (3) the application of power.

The three requirements may be briefly characterized and appraised as follows:

(1) Raw material and soil are products of nature; humanity simply took them and had the use of them for nothing, because it is impossible to call a prayer of thanksgiving (if any) addressed to a “creator” as payment to gods or men. But raw material and soil, in the conditions in which nature produces them, are of very little immediate benefit to humanity, because unfilled soil produces very little food for humans, and raw material such as [pg 081] wood, coal, oil, iron, copper, etc., are completely useless to humanity until after human work is applied to them. It is necessary to cut a tree for the making of timber; it is necessary to excavate the minerals, and even then, only by applying further human work is it possible to make them available for any human use. So, it is obvious that even raw materials in the form in which nature has produced them, are mostly of no value and unavailable for use, unless reproduced through the process of “human creative production.” Therefore, we may well conclude that “raw material” must be divided into two very distinct classes: (a) raw material as produced by nature—nature's free gift—which in its original form and place has practically no use-value; and (b) raw material reproduced by man's mental and muscular activities, by his “time-binding” capacities. Raw materials of the second class have an enormous use-value; indeed they make the existence of humanity possible.

As to the second requirement for production, namely:

(2) Tools and machines, it is obvious that “tools and machines” are made of raw material by human work, mental and muscular.

And, finally:

(3) The application of power. Different sources of natural energy and power are known. The most [pg 082] important available source of energy for this globe is the sun—the heat of the sun. This solar heat is the origin of water power, of wind power, and of the power bound up in coal, of the chemistry, growth and transforming agency of plants.[10]

All foods which the animals as well as the humans use are, already, the result of the solar energy transformed into what may be called chemical energy. Transformation of energies is building up of life.

It is to be clearly seen that the only source of energy which can be directly appropriated and used by man or animal is vegetable food found in the wilderness; no other sources of power are available [pg 084] for direct use; they have first to be mastered and directed by human brain. The same is true in regard to the getting of animal food, the creation of a water- or windmill, or a steam engine, or the art of using a team of horses, or a bushel of wheat; these are not available except by the use of the human “time-binding” power.

This short survey of facts, known to everybody, brings us to the conclusion that all problems of production come ultimately to the analysis of

(1) Natural resources of raw material and natural energy, freely supplied by nature, which, as we have seen, in the form as produced by nature alone, have very little or no value for humanity;

(2) The activity of the human brain (because human muscles are always directed by the brain) which gives value to the otherwise useless raw materials and energies.

Hence, to understand the processes of production, it is essential to realize that humanity is able to survive only by virtue of the capacity of humans to exploit natural resources—to convert the products of nature into forms available for human needs. If humanity had only the capacity of apes, depending exclusively on wild fruits and the like, they would be confined to those comparatively small regions of the globe where the climate and the fertility of the soil are specially favorable. But in the case supposed, [pg 085] humans would not be humans, they would not be time-binders—they would be animals—mere space-binders.

There are other facts which must be kept constantly in mind. One of them is that, in the world in which we live, there are natural laws of inorganic as well as organic phenomena. Another of the facts is, as before said, that the human class of life has the peculiar capacity of establishing the social laws and customs which regulate and influence its destinies, which help or hinder the processes of production upon which the lives and happiness of mankind essentially and fundamentally depend.

It must not be lost sight of in this connection that the human class of life is a part and a product of nature, and that, therefore, there must be fundamental laws which are natural for this class of life. A stone obeys the natural laws of stones; a liquid conforms to the natural law of liquids; a plant, to the natural laws of plants; an animal, to the natural laws of animals; it follows inevitably that there must be natural laws for humans.

But here the problem becomes more complicated; for the stone, the plant and the animal do not possess the intellectual power to create and initiate and so must blindly obey the laws that are natural for them; they are not free to determine their own destinies. Not so with man; man has the capacity and he [pg 086] can, through ignorance or neglect or mal-intent, deviate from, or misinterpret, the natural laws for the human class of life. Just therein lies the secret and the source of human chaos and woe—a fact of such tremendous importance that it cannot be over-emphasized and it seems impossible to evade it longer. To discover the nature of Man and the laws of that nature, marks the summit of human enterprises. For to solve this problem is to open the way to everything which can be of importance to humanity—to human welfare and happiness.

The great problem has been felt as a powerful impulse throughout the ages of human striving, for in all times it has been evident to thinkers that upon the right solution of the problem must forever depend the welfare of mankind. Many “solutions” have been offered; and, though they have differed widely, they agree in one respect—they have had a common fate—the fate of being false. What has been the trouble? The trouble has been, in every instance, a radical misconception of what a human being really is. The problem is to discover the natural laws of the human class of life. All the “solutions” offered in the course of history and those which are current to-day are of two and only two kinds—zoological and mythological. The zoological solutions are those which grow out of the false conception according to which human beings are animals; [pg 087] if humans are animals, the laws of human nature are the laws of animal nature; and so the social “sciences” of ethics, law, politics, economics, government become nothing but branches of zoology; as sciences, they are the studies of animal life; as arts, they are the arts of managing and controlling animals; according to this zoological philosophy, human wisdom about human beings is animal wisdom about animals.

The mythological “solutions” are those which start with the monstrous conception according to which human beings have no proper place in nature but are mixtures of natural and supernatural—unions or combinations of animality and divinity. Such “solutions” contain no conception of natural law; scientifically judged, they are mythological absurdities—muddle-headed chattering of crude and irresponsible metaphysics—well-meaning no doubt, but silly, and deadly in their effects upon the interests of mankind, vitiating ethics, law, economics, politics and government.

Such have been and still are the regnant philosophies of human nature. What is the remedy? How are the laws of human nature to be discovered?

It is evident that the enterprise, like all other scientific enterprises, must be based upon and guided by realities. It is essential to realize that the great, central, dominant, all-embracing reality is the reality [pg 088] of human nature. If we misconceive this fundamental matter, the enterprise must fail; that is both logically clear and clear in the sad light of history; but if we conceive it aright, we may confidently expect the enterprise to prosper. That is why, in the chapter on “The Classes of Life,” I have laid so much stress on the absolute necessity of conceiving Man as being what he really is, and not something else. And we have discovered what man is: we have discovered that man is characterized by the capacity or power to bind time, and so we have defined humanity as the time-binding class of life. That concept is fundamental. It contains the germ of the science and art of Human Engineering. The problem of discovering and applying the “laws of human nature” is the problem of discovering and applying to the conduct of life the laws of time-binding—of time-binding activity—of time-binding energy. This fact must be firmly seized and kept steadily in mind.

Energy, we have noted, is the capacity to do work. In human economy work may be (1) useful or (2) neutral or (3) harmful. These words have no significance except in human economy. The energy of the human intellect is a time-binding energy, for it is able to direct, to use, to transform other energies. This time-binding energy is of higher rank—of higher dimensionality—than the other natural energies which it directs, controls, uses, and transforms. [pg 089] This higher energy—which is commonly called the mental or spiritual power of man—is time-binding because it makes past achievements live in the present and present activities in time-to-come. It is an energy that initiates; it is an energy that creates; it is an energy that can understand the past and foretell the future—it is both historian and prophet; it is an energy that loads abstract time—the vehicle of events—with an ever-increasing burden of intellectual achievements, of spiritual wealth, destined for the civilization of posterity. And what is the natural law of the increase? What is the natural law of human advancements in all great matters of human concern?

The question is of utmost importance both theoretically and practically, for the law—whatever it be—is a natural law—a law of human nature—a law of the time-binding energy of man. What is the law? We have already noted the law of arithmetical progression and the law of geometric progression; we have seen the immense difference between them; and we have seen that the natural law of human progress in each and every cardinal matter is a law like that of a rapidly increasing geometric progression. In other words, the natural law of human progress—the natural law of amelioration in human affairs—the fundamental law of human nature—the basic law of the time-binding energy [pg 090] peculiar to man—is a Logarithmic law—a law of logarithmic increase. I beg the reader not to let the term bewilder him but to make it his own. It is easy to understand; and its significance is mighty and everlasting. Even its mathematical formulation can be understood by boys and girls. Let us see how the formulation looks.

Suppose PR to denote the amount of progress made in some important field by a given generation—which we may call the “first” generation; where R denotes the common ratio—the ratio of improvement—that is, the number by which the progress of one generation must be multiplied to give the amount of progress made by the next generation; then the amount of progress made by the second generation will be PR2; that made by the third generation will be PR3; and so on; now denote by T the number of generations, counting the first one and all that follow in endless succession. Then the following series will show the law of human progress in the chosen field:

PR, PR2, PR3, PR4, PR5, ..., PRT, PRT+1, ...;

notice how it goes; the first generation ends with PR; the second generation starts with PR, adds PR2, and ends with PR + PR2; the third generation starts with PR + PR2, adds PR3 and ends with PR + PR2 + PR3; and so on and on; the gain made in [pg 091] the Tth generation is PRT; the total gain made in T generations is

PR + PR2 + PR3 + ... + PRT;

this total gain is given by the formula,

Total gain in T generations = (R ÷ R-1) (PRT-P).

If we take R to be 2 (which is a very small ratio, requiring the progress of each generation to be merely double that of the preceding one) and if we take T to be (say) 10, then we see that the progress made by the single 10th generation is P × 210, which is 1024 times the progress made in the “first” generation; and we readily compute that the total gain in 10 generations is 2046 times the progress made in the “first” generation. Moreover, to gain a just sense of the impressiveness of this law, the reader must reflect upon the fact that it operates, not merely on one field, but in all fields of human interest. “Operates in all fields” I have just now said; as a matter of fact, as before pointed out, it does not so operate now in all fields nor has it ever done so. My point is that it will so operate when we once acquire sense enough to let it do so. That sense we shall have when and only when we discover that by nature we are time-binders and that the effectiveness of our time-binding capacity is not [pg 092] only a function of time but is, as I have explained, a logarithmic or exponential function of time—a function in which time (T) enters as an exponent, as in the expression PRT, so that we humans are, unlike animals, naturally qualified not only to progress, but to progress more and more rapidly, with an always accelerating acceleration, as the generations pass.

This great fact is to be at once the basis, the regulator and guide in the science and art of Human Engineering. Whatever squares with that law of time-binding human energy, is right and makes for human weal; whatever contravenes it, is wrong and makes for human woe.

And so I repeat that the world will have uninterrupted, peaceful progress when and only when the so-called social “sciences”—the life-regulating “sciences” of ethics, law, philosophy, economics, religion, politics, and government—are technologized; when and only when they are made genuinely scientific in spirit and method; for then and only then will they advance, like the natural, mathematical and technological sciences, in conformity to the fundamental exponential law of the time-binding nature of man; then and then only, by the equal pace of progress in all cardinal matters, the equilibrium of social institutions will remain stable and social cataclysms cease.

Chapter V. Wealth

I beg the reader to allow me to begin this chapter with a word of warning. The reader is aware that Criticism—by which I mean Thought—may be any one of three kinds: it may be purely destructive; it may be purely constructive; or it may be both destructive and constructive at the same time. Purely destructive criticism is sometimes highly useful. If an old idea or a system of old ideas be false and therefore harmful, it is a genuine service to attack it and destroy it even if nothing be offered to take its place, just as it is good to destroy a rattlesnake lurking by a human pathway, even if one does not offer a substitute for the snake. But, however useful destructive criticism may be, it is not an easy service to render; for old ideas, however false and harmful, are protected alike by habit and by the inborn conservatism of many minds. Now, habit indeed is exceedingly useful—even indispensable to the effective conduct of life—for it enables us to do many useful things automatically and therefore easily, without conscious thinking, and thus to save our mental energy for other work; but for the same [pg 094] reason, habit is often very harmful; it makes us protect false ideas automatically, and so when the destructive critic endeavors to destroy such ideas by reasoning with us, he finds that he is trying to reason with automats—with machines. Such is the chief difficulty encountered by destructive criticism. On the other hand, purely constructive criticism—purely constructive thought—consists in introducing new ideas of a kind that do not clash, or do not seem to clash, with old ones. Is such criticism or thought easy? Far from it. It has difficulties of its own. These are of two varieties: the difficulty of showing people who are content with their present stock of old ideas that the new ones are interesting or important; and the great difficulty of making new ideas clear and intelligible, for the art of being clear and perfectly intelligible is very, very hard to acquire and to practise. The third kind of criticism—the third kind of thought—the kind that is at once both destructive and constructive—has a double aim—that of destroying old ideas that are false and that of replacing them with new ideas that are true; and so the third kind of criticism or thought is the most difficult of all, for it has to overcome both the difficulty of destructive criticism and that of constructive thought.

The reader, therefore, if he will be good enough to reflect a little upon the matter, can not fail to appreciate [pg 095] the tremendous difficulties which beset the writing of this little book, for he must perceive, not only that the work belongs to the third kind of critical thought, but—what is much more—the errors it aims to destroy are fundamental, world-wide and old, while the true ideas it seeks to substitute for them are fundamental and new. This great difficulty, felt at every stage of this writing, is, for a reason to be presently explained, greatly enhanced and felt with especial keenness in the present chapter. I therefore beg the reader to give me here very special cooperation—the cooperation of open-mindedness, candor and critical attention. It is essential to keep in mind the nature of our enterprise as a whole, which is that of pointing the way to the science and art of Human Engineering and laying the foundations thereof; we have seen Human Engineering, when developed, is to be the science and art of so directing human energies and capacities as to make them contribute most effectively to the advancement of human welfare; we have seen that this science and art must have its basis in a true conception of human nature—a just conception of what Man really is and of his natural place in the complex of the world; we have seen that the ages-old and still current conceptions of man—zoological and mythological conceptions, according to which human beings are either animals or else hybrids of animals and gods—are [pg 096] mainly responsible for the dismal things in human history; we have seen that man, far from being an animal or a compound of natural and supernatural, is a perfectly natural being characterized by a certain capacity or power—the capacity or power to bind time; we have seen that humanity is, therefore, to be rightly conceived and scientifically defined as the time-binding class of life; we have seen that, therefore, the laws of time-binding energies and time-binding phenomena are the laws of human nature; we have seen that this conception of man—which must be the basic concept, the fundamental principle and the perpetual guide and regulator of Human Engineering—is bound to work a profound transformation in all our views on human affairs and, in particular, must radically alter the so-called social “sciences”—the life-regulating “sciences” of ethics, sociology, economics, politics and government—advancing them from their present estate of pseudo sciences to the level of genuine sciences and technologizing them for the effective service of mankind. I call them “life-regulating,” not because they play a more important part in human affairs than do the genuine sciences of mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy and biology, for they are not more important than these, but because they are, so to say, closer, more immediate and more obvious in their influence and effects. These life-regulating sciences [pg 097] are, of course, not independent; they depend ultimately upon the genuine sciences for much of their power and ought to go to them for light and guidance; but what I mean here by saying they are not independent is that they are dependent upon each other, interpenetrating and interlocking in innumerable ways. To show in detail how the so-called sciences will have to be transformed to make them accord with the right conception of man and qualify them for their proper business will eventually require a large volume or indeed volumes.

In this introductory work I cannot deal fully with one of those “sciences” nor in suitable outline with each of them separately. I must be content here to deal, very briefly, with one of them by way of illustration and suggestion. Which one shall it be?

Now among these life-regulating “sciences” there is one specially marked by the importance of its subject, by its central relation to the others and by its prominence in the public mind. I mean Economics—the “dismal science” of Political Economy. For that reason I have chosen to deal with economics. In the present chapter I shall discuss three of its principal terms—Wealth, Capital and Money—with a view to showing that the current meanings and interpretations of these familiar terms must be very greatly deepened, enlarged and elevated if they are to accord with facts and laws of human nature and if the so-called [pg 098] “science” which employs them is to become a genuine science properly qualified to be a branch of Human Engineering. It is to be shown that the meanings currently attached by political economists and others to the terms in question belong to what I have called the period of humanity's childhood; and it is to be shown that the new meanings which the terms must receive belong to the period of humanity's manhood. It will be seen that the new meanings differ so radically from the old ones as to make it desirable for the sake of clarity to give the new meanings new names. But this, however scientifically desirable, is impracticable because the old terms—wealth, capital, money—are so deeply imbedded in the speech of the world. And here comes into view the very special difficulty alluded to above and which led me to request the reader's special cooperation in this chapter. The difficulty is not merely that of destroying old ideas that are false; it is not merely that of replacing them with true ideas that are new; it is that of causing people habitually to associate meanings that are new and true with terms associated so long, so universally, so uniformly with meanings that are false.

The secret of philosophy, said Leibnitz, is to treat familiar things as unfamiliar. By the secret of “philosophy” Leibnitz meant the secret of what we call science. Let us apply this wholesome maxim in [pg 099] our present study; let us, in so far as we can, regard the familiar terms—wealth, capital and money—as unfamiliar; let us deal with them afresh; let us examine openmindedly the facts—the phenomena—to which the terms relate and ascertain scientifically the significance the terms must have in a genuine science of human economy. Examine “the facts” I say—examine “the phenomena”—for bending facts to theories is a vital danger, while bending theories to facts is essential to science and the peaceful progress of society.

Human beings have always had some sense of values—some perception or cognition of values. In order to express or measure values, it was necessary to introduce units of measure, or units of exchange. People began to measure values by means of agricultural and other products, such as cattle, for example. The Latin word for cattle was pecus, and the word pecunia, which came to signify money, accounts for the meaning of our familiar word pecuniary. The earliest units for measuring became unsuited to the increasing needs of growing trade, “business,” or traffic. Finally a unit called money was adopted in which the base was the value of some weight of gold. Thus we see that money came to mean simply the accepted unit for measuring, representing and expressing values of and in wealth.

But what is wealth? I have said that the old [pg 100] conceptions of wealth, capital and money—the conceptions that are still current throughout the world—belong to the period of humanity's childhood—they are childish conceptions. I have said that they must be replaced by scientific conceptions—by conceptions fit for humanity's manhood. The change that must be made in our conceptions of the great terms is tremendous. It is necessary to analyse the current conceptions of wealth, capital, and money—the childish conceptions of them—in order to reveal their falseness, stupidity and folly. To do this we must enter the field of Political Economy—a field beset with peculiar difficulties and dangers. All the Furies of private interests are involved. One gains the impression that there is little or no real desire to gain a true conception—a scientific conception—of wealth. Everybody seems to prefer an emotional definition—a definition that suits his personal love of wealth or his hatred of it. Many definitions of wealth, capital and money are to be found in modern books of political economy—definitions and books belonging to humanity's childhood. For the purpose of this writing they all of them look alike—they sufficiently agree—they are all of them childish. Mill, for example, tells us that wealth consists of “useful or agreeable things which possess exchangeable value.” Of capital one of the simplest definitions is this:

“Capital is that part of wealth which is devoted to obtaining further wealth.” (Alfred Marshall, Economics of Industry.)

Walker (in his Money, Trade and Industry) defines money as follows:

“Money is that which passes freely from hand to hand throughout the community in final discharge of debts and full payment for commodities, being accepted equally without reference to the character or credit of the person who offers it, and without the intention of the person who receives it to consume it, or to enjoy it, or apply it to any other use than, in turn, to tender it to others in discharge of debts or full payment for commodities.”

Political economy has many different schools of thought and methods of classification. Its reasonings are mainly speculative, metaphysical, and legalistic; its ethics is zoological ethics, based on the zoological conception of man as an animal. The elements of natural logic and natural ethics are absent. The sophisticated ideas about the subject of political economy, bluntly do not correspond to facts. Our primitive forefather in the jungle would have died from hunger, cold, heat, blood poisoning or the attacks of wild animals, if he had not used his brain and muscles to take some stone or a piece of wood to knock down fruit from trees, to kill an animal, so as to use his hide for clothes and his meat for food, or to break wood and trees for a shelter and to make some weapons for defense and hunting.

“In the first stone which he (the savage) flings at the wild animal he pursues, in the first stick that he seizes to strike down the fruit which hangs above his reach, we see the appropriation of one article for the purpose of aiding in the acquisition of another and thus we discover the origin of capital.” (R. Torrens, An Essay on the Production of Wealth.)

Our primitive forefather's first acquaintance with fire was probably through lightning; he discovered, probably by chance, the possibility of making fire by rubbing together two pieces of wood and by striking together two pieces of stone; he established one of the first facts in technology; he felt the warm effect of fire and also the good effect of broiling his food by finding some roasted animals in a fire. Thus nature revealed to him one of its great gifts, the stored-up energy of the sun in vegetation and its primitive beneficial use. He was already a time-binding being; evolution had brought him to that level. Being a product of nature, he was reflecting those natural laws that belong to his class of life; he had ceased to be static—he had become dynamic—progressiveness had got into his blood—he was above the estate of animals.

We also observe that primitive man produced commodities, acquired experiences, made observations, and that some of the produced commodities had a use-value for other people and remained good for use, even after his death.

The produced commodities were composed of raw material, freely supplied by nature, combined with some mental work which gave him the conception of how to make and to use the object, and some work on his part which finally shaped the thing; all of this mental and manual work consumed an amount of time. It is obvious that all of these elements are indispensable to produce anything of any value, or of any use-value. His child not only directly received some of the use-values produced by him, but was initiated into all of his experiences and observations. (As we know, power, as defined in mechanics, means the ratio of work done to the time used in doing it.)

All those things are time-binding phenomena produced by the time-binding capacity of man; but man has not known that this capacity was his defining mark. We must notice the strange fact that, from the engineering point of view, humanity, though very developed in some ways, is childishly undeveloped in others. Humanity has some conceptions about dimensions and talks of the world in which we live as having three dimensions; yet even in its wildest imagination it can not picture tangibly a fourth dimension; nay, humanity has not learned to grasp the real meanings of things that are basic or fundamental. All of our conceptions are relative and comparative; all of them are based upon matters [pg 104] which we do not yet understand; for example, we talk of time, space, electricity, gravity, and so on, but no one has been able to define them in terms of the data of sensation; nevertheless—and it is a fact of the greatest importance—we learn how to use many things which we do not fully understand and are not yet able to define.

In political economy the meagreness of our understanding is especially remarkable; we have not yet grasped the obvious fact—a fact of immeasurable import for all of the social sciences—that with little exception the wealth and capital possessed by a given generation are not produced by its own toil but are the inherited fruit of dead men's toil—a free gift of the past. We have yet to learn and apply the lesson that not only our material wealth and capital but our science and art and learning and wisdom—all that goes to constitute our civilization—were produced, not by our own labor, but by the time-binding energies of past generations.

Primitive man used natural laws without knowing them or understanding them, but he was able to cause nature to express itself, by finding a way to release nature's stored up energy. Through the work of his brain and its direction in the use of his muscles, he found that some of his appliances were not good; he made better ones, and thus slowly at first, the progress of humanity went on. I will not enlarge [pg 105] upon the history of the evolution of civilization because it is told in many books.

In the earliest times the religious, philosophical, legal and ethical systems had not been invented. The morale at that time was a natural morale. Humans knew that they did not create nature. They did not feel it “proper” to “expropriate the creator” and legalistically appropriate the earth and its treasure for themselves. They felt, in their unsophisticated morale, that being called into existence they had a natural right to exist and to use freely the gifts of nature in the preservation of their life; and that is what they did.

After the death of a man, some of the objects produced by him still survived, such as weapons, fishing or hunting instruments, or the caves adapted for living; a baby had to be nourished for some years by its parents or it would have died. Those facts had important consequences; objects made by someone for some particular use could be used by someone else, even after the death of one or more successive users; again the experiences acquired by one member of a family or a group of people were taught by example or precept to others of the same generation and to the next generation. Such simple facts are the corner stones of our whole civilization and they are the direct result of the human capacity of time-binding.

The world to-day is full of controversy about wealth, capital, and money, and because humanity, through its peculiar time-binding power, binds this element “time” in an ever larger and larger degree, the controversy becomes more and more acute. Civilization as a process is the process of binding time; progress is made by the fact that each generation adds to the material and spiritual wealth which it inherits. Past achievements—the fruit of bygone time—thus live in the present, are augmented in the present, and transmitted to the future; the process goes on; time, the essential element, is so involved that, though it increases arithmetically, its fruit, civilization, advances geometrically.

But there is another peculiarity in wealth and money: If a wooden or iron “inch” be allowed to rot or rust quietly on some shelf, this “inch” does not represent anything besides this piece of wood or iron. But if we take the mental value of an inch, this unit of one of the measures of space, and use it, with other quantities, in the contemplation of the skies for the solving of an astronomical problem, it gives a prophetic answer that, in a certain place there is a star; this star, may be for years looked for in vain. Was it that the calculation was wrong? No, for after further search with telescopes of greater power, the star is found and the calculation thus verified.

It is obvious that the “unit”—inch—has no value by itself, but is very precious as a unit for measuring the phenomenon of length, which it perfectly represents, and that is why it was introduced.

It is exactly the same with money if the term be rightly understood. Understood aright, money, being the measure and representative of wealth, is in the main, the measure and the representative of dead men's toil; for, rightly understood, wealth is almost entirely the product of the labor of by-gone generations. This product, we have seen, involves the element of time as the chief factor. And so we discover how money, properly understood, is connected with time—the main function of money is to measure and represent the accumulated products of the labor of past generations. Hoarded money is like an iron “inch” upon a shelf—a useless lump; but when used as a measure and representative of wealth rightly understood, money renders invaluable service, for it then serves to measure and represent the living fruit of dead men's toil.

For this reason, it is useless to argue who is the more important, the capitalist who has legal possession of most of the material fruit of dead men's toil, or the laborer who has legal possession of but little of it. In the laborer, we do not now really look for his physical muscular labor alone; for this is replaced by mechanical or animal power as soon as [pg 108] it can be. What we do need from labor, and what we will always need, is his brain—his time-binding power.

The population of the world may be divided into different classes; if the classes are not here enumerated in the customary way, it is because it is necessary to classify human beings, as nearly as possible according to their “power-value.” There is no assertion that this is an ideal classification, but if someone is moved to exclaim—“what a foolish, unscientific division!”—I will answer by saying: “I grant that the division is foolish and unscientific; but it is the only division which corresponds to facts in life, and it is not the writer's fault. By this ‘foolishness’ some good may be accomplished.”

From an engineer's point of view humanity is apparently to be divided into three classes; (1) the intellectuals; (2) the rich; and (3) the poor. This division would seem to be contrary to all the rules of logic, but it corresponds to facts. Of course some individuals belong to two of the classes or even to all three of them, an after-war product, but essentially, they belong to the one class in proportion to the characteristic which is the most marked in their life; that is, in the sense of social classes—based on magnitude of values.

(1) The intellectuals are the men and women [pg 109] who possess the knowledge produced by the labor of by-gone generations but do not possess the material wealth thus produced. In mastering and using this inheritance of knowledge, they are exercising their time-binding energies and making the labor of the dead live in the present and for the future.

(2) The rich are those who have possession and control of most of the material wealth produced by the toil of bygone generations—wealth that is dead unless animated and transformed by the time-binding labor of the living.

(3) The poor are those who have neither the knowledge possessed by the intellectuals nor the material wealth possessed by the rich and who, moreover, because nearly all their efforts, under present conditions, are limited to the struggle for mere existence, have little or no opportunity to exercise their time-binding capacity.

Let us now try to ascertain the rôle of the time-binding class of life as a whole. We have by necessity, to go back to the beginning—back to the savage. We have seen what were the conditions of his work and progress; we saw that for each successful achievement he often had to wrestle with a very large number of unsuccessful achievements, and his lifetime being so limited, the total of his successful achievements was very limited, so that he was able to give to his child only a few useful objects and [pg 110] the sum of his experience. Generally speaking, each successor did not start his life at the point where his father started; he started somewhere near where his father left off. His father gave, say, fifty years to discover two truths in nature and succeeded in making two or three simple objects; but the son does not need to give fifty years to discover and create the same achievements, and so he has time to achieve something new. He thus adds his own achievements to those of his father in tools and experience; this is the mathematical equivalent of adding his parent's years of life to his own. His mother's work and experience are of course included—the name father and son being only used representatively.

This stupendous fact is the definitive mark of humanity—the power to roll up continuously the ever-increasing achievements of generation after generation endlessly. We have seen that this time-binding power is an exponential power or function of time. Time flows on, increasing in arithmetical progression, adding generation unto generation; but the results of human energies working in time do not go on arithmetically; they pile up or roll up more and more rapidly, augmenting in accordance with the law of a more and more rapidly increasing geometric progression. The typical term of the progression is PRT where PR denotes the ending progress made in the generation with which we [pg 111] agree to start our reckoning, R denotes the ratio increase, and T denotes the number of generations after the chosen “start.” The quantity, PRT of progress made in the Tth generation contains T as an exponent, and so the quantity, varying as time T passes, is called an exponential function of the time.

Nature is the source of all energy. Plants, the lowest form of life, have a definite rôle to perform in the economy of nature. Their function is the forming of albuminoids and other substances for higher purposes. All of their nitrates are high-explosives, or low explosives, but explosives anyway. They are powerful sources of some new energy. Animal life uses these “explosives” as food and is correspondingly more dynamic, but in animal life time does not play the rôle it plays in human life. Animals are limited by death permanently. If animals make any progress from generation to generation, it is so small as to be negligible. A beaver, for example, is a remarkable builder of dams, but he does not progress in the way of inventions or further development. A beaver dam is always a beaver dam.

Finally humanity, the highest known class of life, has time-binding capacity as its characteristic, its discriminant, its peculiar and definitive mark. It is an unrealized fact that in this higher class of [pg 112] life, the law of organic growth develops into the law of energy-growth—the mind—the time-binding energy—an increasing exponential function of time. That fact is of basic importance for the science and art of Human Engineering. In mechanics we have the well-known formula

(1) Work ÷ Time = Power.

We have seen that, in accordance with the law of geometric progression, PRT represents the progress made—the work done—in the Tth generation (T being counted from some generation taken as starting point of reckoning); this progress, achievement, or work, being done in one generation, we have by (1)

(2) ( Work = PRT ) / ( Time = 1) = Power,

that is, PRT = Power; this means that the number PRT, which measures the work done in a given generation, is also the measure of the power that does the work. Now, the total work, W, done in the T generations is

(3) W = PR1 + PR2 + PR3 + ... + PRT;

that is,

(4) W = R ÷ (R-1) × (PRT - P)

It should be noticed that by (2) this expression for W may also be regarded as the sum of T different powers PR, PR2, etc., each working during one and only one generation; if we divided this sum by T, the quotient would be a power that would have to act through T generations to produce W. The reader should not fail to notice very carefully that the expression (4) for W is an expression for the total progress made—the total work done—the total wealth produced—in the course of T generations and he should especially note how the expression involves the exponential function of time (T), namely PRT.

The formula makes mathematically evident the time-binding capacity characteristic of the human class of life. Properly understood, wealth consists of the fruits or products of this time-binding capacity of man. Animals do not produce wealth; it is produced by Man and only Man. The foregoing basic formulation should lead to further similar developments throwing much light upon the process of civilization and serving to eliminate "private opinion" from the conduct of human affairs. (In this writing it is not important to look deeper into these proposed series. The fact remains that P, as well as R, are peculiarly increasing series of a geometrical character—the precise form will be developed in another writing.)

Human achievements and progress, because cumulative, are knocking out the barriers of time. This fact is the vital and dynamic difference between animal life and human life. As plants gather in and store up solar energy into sheaves for the use and growth of animal and man—so humans are gathering and binding the knowledge of past centuries into sheaves for the use and development of generations yet unborn.

We have seen that the term wealth, rightly understood, means the fruit of the time-binding work of humanity. Wealth is of two kinds: one is material; the other is knowledge. Both kinds have use-value. The first kind perishes—the commodities composing it deteriorate and become useless. The other is permanent in character; it is imperishable; it may be lost or forgotten but it does not wear out.

The one is limited in time; the other, unlimited in time; the former I call potential use-value; the latter, kinetic use-value. Analysis will justify the names. The energy of a body which is due to its position, is called potential energy. The energy of a body which is due to its motion, is called kinetic energy. Here the material use-value has value through its position, shape and so forth; it is immobile if not used, and has not the capacity to progress. Mental use-values are not static but permanently dynamic; one thought, one discovery, is the impulse [pg 115] to others; they follow the law of an increasing potential function of time. (See [app. II].) This is why these names correspond to the two names of the two mentioned classes of energy.

Here I must return to the current conceptions of wealth and capital, before cited. “Wealth,” we are told, “is any useful or agreeable thing which possesses exchangeable value.” And we are told that “Capital is that part of wealth which is devoted to obtaining further wealth.” I have said that such conceptions—such definitions—of wealth and capital are childish—they belong to the period of humanity's childhood. That they are indeed childish conceptions the reader can not fail to see if he will reflect upon them and especially if he will compare them with the scientific conception according to which wealth consists of those things—whether they be material commodities or forms of knowledge and understanding—that have been produced by the time-binding energies of humanity, and according to which nearly all the wealth of the world at any given time is the accumulated fruit of the toil of past generations—the living work of the dead. It seems unnecessary to warn the reader against confusing the “making” of money by hook or crook, by trick or trade, with the creating of wealth, by the product of labor. In calling the old conceptions childish, I do not mean that they contain no element of truth [pg 116] whatever; I mean that they are shallow, scientifically or spiritually meagre, narrow in their vision, wrong in their accent; I especially mean that they are dumb, because they are blind, regarding the central matter that wealth is the natural offspring of Time and Human Toil. The old conceptions do indeed imply that wealth and capital involve both potential and kinetic use-values, and in so far they are right. But how do such use-values arise?

The potential use-values in wealth are created by human work operating in time upon raw material given by nature. The use-values are produced by time-taking transformations of the raw materials; these transformations are wrought by human brain labor and human muscular labor directed by the human brain acting in time. The kinetic use-values of wealth are also created by human toil—mainly by the intellectual labor of observation, experimentation, imagination, deduction and invention, all consuming the precious time of short human lives. It is obvious that in the creation of use-values whether potential or kinetic, the element of time enters as an absolutely essential factor. The fundamental importance of time as a factor in the production of wealth—the fact that wealth and the use-values of wealth are literally the natural offspring of the spiritual union of time with toil—has been completely overlooked, not only by the economics, but by the [pg 117] ethics, the jurisprudence and the other branches of speculative reasoning, throughout the long period of humanity's childhood. In the course of the ages there has indeed been much “talk” about time, but there has been no recognition of the basic significance of time as essential in the conception and in the very constitution of human values.

It is often said that “Time is Money”; the statement is often false; but the proposition that Money is Time is always true. It is always true in the profound sense that Money is the measure and symbol of Wealth—the product of Time and Toil—the crystallization of the time-binding human capacity. it is thus true that money is a very precious thing, the measure and symbol of work—in part the work of the living but, in the main, the living work of the dead.

Nature's laws are supreme; we cannot change them; we can deviate from them for a while, but the end is evil. That is the lesson we must learn from the history of Humanity's childhood. False conceptions of Man—ignorance of the laws of human nature—have given us unscientific economies, unscientific ethics, unscientific law, unscientific politics, unscientific government. These have made human history the history of social cataclysms—insurrections, wars, revolutions—sad tokens not so much of human lust as of human ignorance of the laws of [pg 118] human nature. There is but one remedy, one hope—a science and art of Human Engineering based upon the just conception of humanity as the time-binding class of life and conforming to the laws of nature including the laws of human nature.

Chapter VI. Capitalistic Era

The immortal work done by Descartes, Newton and Leibnitz was to discover powerful methods for mathematics—the only fit language for expressing the laws of nature.

Human Engineering will be the science by which the great social problems will be solved. For the first time since the first day of man, humanity will really understand its own nature and status; and will learn to direct scientifically the living and the non-living forces for construction, avoiding unnecessary destruction and waste.

It may seem strange but it is true that the time-binding exponential powers, called humans, do not die—their bodies die but their achievements live forever—a permanent source of power. All of our precious possessions—science, acquired by experience, accumulated wealth in all fields of life—are kinetic and potential use-values created and left by by-gone generations; they are humanity's treasures produced mainly in the past, and conserved for our use, by that peculiar function or power of man for the binding of time. That the natural trend of life [pg 120] and the progress of the development of this treasury is so often checked, turned from its natural course, or set back, is due to ignorance of human nature, to metaphysical speculation and sophistry. Those who, with or without intention, keep the rate of humanity's mental advancement down to that of an arithmetic progression are the real enemies of society; for they keep the life-regulating “sciences” and institutions far behind the gallop of life itself. The consequence is periodic social violence—wars and revolutions.

Let us carry the analysis of potential and kinetic use-values a little further. All potential use-values left to us by the dead are temporal and differ in utility. Many potential use-values are found in museums and have very limited value to-day in practical life. On the other hand some roads or water-ways built by the ancients have use-value to-day; and an almost endless list of modern potential use-values have or will have use-values for a long time to come, such as buildings, improved lands, railroad tracks, certain machines or tools; the use-value of some such items of material wealth will last for more than one generation. Kinetic use-values are permanent in their character, for, though they may become antiquated, they yet serve as the foundation for the developments that supersede them, and so they continue to live in that to which they lead.

I would draw attention at this point to one of the [pg 121] most important kinetic and potential use-values produced by humanity—the invention of the steam engine. Through this invention, humanity has been able to avail itself, not only of the living fruits of dead men's toil, but also of the inconceivably vast amounts of solar energy and time bound up in the growth of vegetable life and conserved for use in the form of coal and other fuels of vegetable origin. This invention has revolutionized our life in countless directions. To be brief, I will analyse only the most salient effects. Human Engineering has never existed except in the most embryonic form. In remote antiquity the conception and knowledge of natural law was wholly absent or exceedingly vague. Before the invention of the steam engine, people depended mainly upon human powers—that is, upon “living powers”—the powers of living men, and the living fruits of the labor of the dead. Even then there were manifold complications.

The invention of the steam engine released for human use a new power of tremendous magnitude—the stored-up power of solar energy and ages of time. But we must not fail to note carefully that we to-day are enabled to use this immense new power of bound-up solar energy and time by a human invention, a product of the dead.

The full significance of the last statement requires reflection. The now dead inventor of the steam [pg 122] engine could not have produced his ingenious invention except by using the living powers of other dead men—except by using the material and spiritual or mental wealth created by those who had gone before. In the inventor's intellectual equipment there was actively present the kinetic use-value of “bound-up-time,” enabling him to discover the laws of heat, water, and steam; and he employed both the potential and kinetic use-values of mechanical instruments, methods of work, and scientific knowledge of his time and generation—use-values of wealth created by the genius and toil of by-gone generations. This invention was not produced, let us say 6000 years ago, because civilization was not then sufficiently advanced: mathematically considered, the production of this great use-value had to await all the accumulated work of six thousand years of human ingenuity and human labor. So, if we choose, the steam engine may be considered a kinetic use-value in which the factor of time is equal to something like 6000 years, or let us say roughly 200 generations.

It is obvious that, in one life time, even a genius of the highest order, could not, in aboriginal conditions, have invented and built a steam engine, when everything, even iron, was unknown. Of course if the same inventor could have had a life of several thousands of years and could have consecutively followed up all the processes, unhampered by the prejudices [pg 123] of those days, and been able to make all of these inventions by himself, he would represent in himself all the progress of civilization.