Chapter 11

“In Europe we know that an age is dying. Here it would be easy to miss the signs of coming changes, but I have little doubt that it will come. A realization of the _aimlessness_ of life lived to labor and to die, having achieved nothing but avoidance of starvation, and the birth of children also doomed to the weary treadmill, has seized the minds of millions.” _Sir Auckland Geddes, British Ambassador to the U. S. 1920._

In conclusion let me say very briefly, as I said in the beginning, that this little book has aimed to be only a sketch. The Problem of Life is old. I have endeavored to approach it afresh, with a new method, in a new spirit, from a new point of view. The literature of the subject is vast. It displays great knowledge and skill. Much of it is fitted to inform and to inspire such as really read with a genuine desire to understand. Its weakness is due to the absence of a true conception of what human beings are. That is what I miss in it and it is that lack of fundamental and central thought that I have striven to supply. If I have succeeded in that, I have no fear—all else will follow quickly, inevitably, as a matter of course. For a fundamental conception, once it is formed and expressed, has a strange power—the power of enlisting the thought and cooperation of many minds. And no conception can have greater power in our human world than a _true_ conception of the nature of Man. For that most important of truths the times are ripe; the world is filled with the saddest of memories, with gloom, forebodings and fear. Without the truth in this matter, there can be no rational hope—history must go on in its dismal course; but _with_ the truth, there is not only hope but certitude that the old order has passed and that humanity’s manhood dates from the present day. That I have here presented the truth in this matter—the true conception of the human class of life—I have personally no doubt; and I have no doubt that that conception is to be the base, the guide, the source of light, of a new civilization. Whether I am mistaken or not, time will decide. I feel as Buckle felt in writing his _History of Civilization_:

“Whether or not I have effected anything of real value ... is a question for competent judges to decide. Of this, at least, I feel certain, that whatever imperfections may be observed, the fault consists, not in the method proposed, but in the extreme difficulty of any single man putting into full operation all the parts of so vast a scheme. It is on this point, and on this alone, that I feel the need of great indulgence. But, as to the plan itself, I have no misgivings. Of defects in its execution I am not unconscious. I can only plead the immensity of the subject, the shortness of a single life and the imperfection of every single enterprise. I, therefore, wish this work to be estimated, not according to the finish of its separate parts, but according to the way in which those parts have been fused into a complete and symmetrical whole. This, in an undertaking of such novelty and magnitude, I have a right to expect, and I would moreover, add, that if the reader has met with opinions adverse to his own, he should remember, that his views are, perhaps, the same as those which I too once held, and which I have abandoned, because, after a wider range of study, I found them unsupported by solid proof, subversive of the interest of Man, and fatal to the progress of his knowledge. To examine the notions in which we have been educated, and to turn aside from those which will not bear the test, is a task so painful, that they who shrink from the sufferings should pause before they reproach those by whom the suffering is undergone.... Conclusions arrived at in this way are not to be overturned by stating that they endanger some other conclusions; nor can they be even affected by allegation against their supposed tendency. The principles which I advocate are based upon distinct arguments supported by well ascertained facts. The only points, therefore, to be ascertained, are, whether the arguments are fair, and whether the facts are certain. If these two conditions have been obeyed, the principles follow by an inevitable inference.”

And why have I sought throughout to follow the spirit of mathematics? Because I have been dealing with ideas and have desired, above all things else, to be right and clear. Ideas have a character of their own—they are right or wrong independently of our hopes and passions and will. In the connection of ideas there is an unbreakable thread of destiny. That is why in his _Mathematical Philosophy_ Professor Keyser has truly said:

“Mathematics is the study of Fate—not fate in a physical sense, but in the sense of the binding thread that connects thought with thought and conclusions with their premises. Where, then, is our freedom? What do you love? Painting? Poetry? Music? The muses are _their_ fates. Whoso loves them is free. Logic is the muse of Thought.”

No doubt mathematics is truly impersonal in method; too impersonal maybe to please the sentimentalists before they take the time to think; mathematical analysis of life phenomena elevates our point of view above passion, above selfishness in any form, and, therefore, it is the only method which can tell us genuine truths about ourselves. Spinosa even in the 17th Century had well realized this fact and although imperfect in many ways, his was an effort in the right direction and this quoted conclusion may well be a conclusion for ourselves in the 20th century:

“The truth might forever have remained hid from the human race, if mathematics, which looks not to the final cause of figures, but to their essential nature and the properties involved in it, had not set another type of knowledge before them.... When I turned my mind to this subject, I did not propose to myself any novel or strange aim, but simply to demonstrate by certain and indubitable reason, those things which agree best with practice. And in order that I might enquire into the matters of the science with the same freedom of mind with which we are wont to treat lines and surfaces in mathematics; I determined not to laugh or to weep over the actions of men, but simply to understand them; and to contemplate their affections and passions, such as love, hate, anger, envy, arrogance, pity and all other disturbances of soul not as vices of human nature, but as properties pertaining to it in the same way as heat, cold, storm, thunder pertain to the nature of the atmosphere. For these, though troublesome, are yet necessary, and have certain causes through which we may come to understand them, and thus, by contemplating them in their truth, gain for our minds much joy as by the knowledge of things that are pleasing to the senses.”

If only this little book will _initiate_ the scientific study of Man, I shall be happy; for then we may confidently expect a science and art that will know how to direct the energies of man to the advancement of human weal.

What else? Many topics have not even been broached. Time-binding energy—what may it not achieve in course of the aeons to come? What light may it not yet throw upon such fundamental phenomena as _Space_, _Time_, _Infinity_, and so on? What, if any, are the limits of Time-binding? In it are somehow involved all the higher functions of mind. Is Time identical with Intelligence? Is either of them the other’s cause? Is Time _in_ the Cosmos or is the latter in the former? Is the Cosmos intelligent? Many no doubt and marvelous are the fields which the scientific study of man will open for research.

Appendix I. Mathematics And Time-Binding

The purpose of this appendix is to give an expression of some new ideas which evolve directly out of the fact that humans are time-binders and which may serve as suggestions for the foundation of _scientific psychology_. The problem is of exceeding difficulty to give expression to in any form and therefore much more difficult to express in any exact or correct form, and so I beg the reader’s patience in regard to the language because some of the ideas are in themselves correct and sometimes very suggestive in spite of the language used. I am particularly interested that mathematicians, physicists and metaphysicians should read it carefully, forgive me the form, and look into the suggestions, because scientific psychology if such a science is to exist, would by necessity have to be a branch of physics. I particularly beg the mathematicians and physicists not to discard this appendix with too hasty a judgment of “Oh! metaphysics,” and also the metaphysicians not to do the same with an equally hasty judgment “Oh! mathematics.” I hope that if this appendix is sympathetically understood, mathematicians and physicists will be moved to investigate the problem. If mathematicians and physicists would be more tolerant toward metaphysics and if metaphysicians would be moved to study mathematics, both would find tremendous fields to work in.

Some scientists are very pedantic and therefore intolerant in their pedantry and they may say “the fellow should learn first how to express himself and then ask our attention.” My answer is that the problems involved are too pressing, too vital, too fundamental for humankind, to permit me to delay for perhaps long years before I shall be able to present the subject in a correct and satisfactory form, and also that the problems involved cover too vast a field for a single man to work it conclusively. It seems best to give the new ideas to the public in a suggestive form so that many people may be led to work on them more fully.

The old word “metaphysics” is an illegitimate child of ignorance and an unnecessary word in the scientific study of nature. Every phenomenon of nature can be classed and studied in physics or chemistry or mathematics; the problem, therefore, is not in any way _super_natural or _super_physical, but belongs rather to an unknown or an undeveloped branch of physics. The problem, therefore, may be not that of some _new_ science, but rather that of a new branch of mathematics, or physics, or chemistry, etc., or all combined.

It is pathetic that only after many aeons of human existence the dimensionality of man has been discovered and his proper status in _nature_ has been given by the definition of “time-binder.” The old metaphysics, in spite of its being far from exact, accomplished a great deal. What prevented metaphysics from achieving more was its use of unmathematical method, or, to be more explicit, its failure to understand the importance of dimensions. Metaphysics used words and conceptions of multi-dimensional meanings which of necessity resulted in hopeless confusion, in “a talking” about words, in mere verbalism. An example will serve to make this clear. If we were to speak of a cow, a man, an automobile, and a locomotive as “pullers,” and if we were not to use any other names in connection with them, what would happen? If we characterized these things or beings, by one common characteristic, namely, “to pull,” havoc would be introduced into our conceptions and in practical life; we would try to milk an automobile or we would try to extract gasoline from a cow, or look for a screw in a man, or we would speculate about any or all of these things. Too obviously nonsensical—but exactly the same thing happens, in a much more subtle way, when we use such words as “life in a crystal” or “memory in animals”; we are thus mentally making a mistake no less nonsensical than the talk of “milking an automobile” would be. Laymen are baffled by the word dimension. They imagine that dimensions are applicable only to space, which is three dimensional, but they are mistaken; a moving object is four-dimensional—that is, it has three dimensions as any object at rest, but, when the object is moving, a fourth dimension is necessary to give its _position_ at any one instant. We see, therefore, that a moving body has four dimensions, and so on. As a matter of fact, scientific psychology will very much need mathematics, but a special _humanized_ mathematics. Can this be produced? It seems to me that it can.

It is a well known fact that experimental sciences bring us to face facts which require further theoretical elaboration; in this way experimental sciences are a permanent source of inspiration to mathematicians because new facts bring about the need of new methods of analysis.

In this book a new and experimental fact has been disclosed and analysed. It is the fact that humanity is a time-binding class of life where the time-binding capacity or the time-binding ENERGY is the highest function of humanity, including all the so-called mental, spiritual, will, etc., powers. In using the words mental, spiritual, and will powers, I deliberately accept and use them in the popular, ordinary sense without further analysing them.

Once the word and concept _Time_ enters, the ground for analysis and reasoning at once becomes very slippery. Mathematicians, physicists, etc., may feel that the expression is just a “well adapted one,” and they may not be very much inclined to look closer into it or attentively to analyse it. Theologians and metaphysicians probably will speculate a great deal about it vaguely, with undefined terms and incoherent ideas with incoherent results; which will not lead us toward a scientific or true solution, but will keep us away from the discovery of truth.

In the meantime two facts remain facts: namely, mathematicians and physicists have almost all agreed with Minkowski “that space by itself and time by itself, are mere shadows, and only a kind of blend of the two exists in its own right.” The other fact—psychological fact—is that _time_ exists psychologically by itself, undefined and not understood. One chief difficulty is always that humans have to sit in judgment upon their own case. The psychological time as such, is our own human time; scientific time as such, is also our own human time. Which one of them is the best concept—which one more nearly corresponds to the truth about “time”? What is time (if any) anyway? Until now we have gone from “Cosmos” to “Bios,” from “Bios” to “Logos,” now we are confronted with the fact that “Logos”—Intelligence—and Time-binding are dangerously near to akin to each other, or may be identical. Do we in this way approach or go back to “Cosmos”? Such are the crucial questions which arise out of this new concept of Man. One fact must be borne in mind, that “the principles of dynamics appeared first to us, as experimental truths; but we have been obliged to use them as definitions. It is by definition that force is equal to the product of mass by acceleration, or that action is equal to reaction.” (_The Foundation of Science_, by Henri Poincaré); and mathematics also has its whole foundation in a few axioms, “self evident,” but _psychological facts_. It must be noted that the time-binding energy—the higher or highest energies of man (one of its branches anyway, for sake of discrimination let us call it “_M_”) when it works properly, that is, mathematically, does _not_ work _psychologically_ but works ABSTRACTLY: the higher the abstraction the less there is of the psychological element and the more there is, so to say, of the pure, impersonal time-binding energy (_M_). The definition of a man as a time-binder—a definition based on facts—suggests many reflections. One of them is the possibility that one of the functions of the time-binding energy in its pure form, in the highest abstraction (_M_), works automatically—machine-like, as it were, shaping _correctly_ the product of its activity, but whether _truly_ is another matter. Mathematics does not presume that its conclusions are true, but it does assert that its conclusions are correct; that is the inestimable value of mathematics. This becomes a very comprehensive fact if we approach and analyse the mathematical processes as some branch (_M_) of the time-binding process, which they are; then this process at once becomes impersonal and cosmic, because of the time-binding involved in it, no matter what _time_ is (if there is such a thing as time).

Is the succession of cosmos, bios, logos, time-binding taking us right back to cosmos again? Now if we put _psychological_ axioms into the time-binding apparatus, it will thrash out the results _correctly_, but whether the results are _true_ is another question.

To be able to talk about these problems I have to introduce three new definitions, which are introduced only for practical purposes. It may happen that after some rewording these definitions may become scientific.

I will try to define “truth” and for this purpose I will divide the concept “truth” into three types:

(1) Psychological, or private, or relative truth, by which I will mean such conceptions of the truth as any one person possesses, but different from other types of truth (α1, α2, ... αn)

(2) Scientific truth (αs), by which I will mean a psychological truth when it is approved by the time-binding faculties or apparatus in the present stage of our development. This scientific truth represents the “bound-up-time” in our present knowledge; and finally,

(3) The absolute truth, which will be the _final definition_ of a phenomenon based upon the final knowledge of _primal causation valid in infinity_.

For simplicity’s sake I will use the signs α1, α2, ... αn for the “psychological,” “private,” or “relative” truths, between which, for the moment, I will not discriminate.

αs1, αs2, ... αsn, will be used for scientific truths, and finally αinfinity for the absolute truth valid in infinity.

To make it easier to explain, I will illustrate the suggestions by an example. Let us suppose that the human time-binding capacities or energies in the _organic_ chemistry correspond to radium in the _inorganic_ chemistry; being of course of different dimensions and of absolutely different character. It may happen, for it probably is so, that the complex time-binding energy has many different stages of development and different kinds of “rays” _A_, _B_, _C_, ... _M_....

Let us suppose that the so-called mental capacities are the _M_ rays of the time-binding energy; the “spiritual” capacities, the _A_ rays; the “will” powers, the _B_ rays; and so on. Psychological truths will then be a function of all rays together, namely _A_ _B_ _C_ ... _M_ ... or _f_ (_A_ _B_ _C_ ... _M_ ...), the character of any “truth” in question will largely depend upon which of these elements prevail.

If it were possible to isolate completely from the other rays the “mental” process—the “logos”—the _M_ rays—and have a complete abstraction (which in the present could only be in mathematics), then the work of _M_ could be compared to the work of an impersonal machine which always gives the same _correctly_ shaped product _no matter what is_ the material put into it.

It is a fact that mathematics is correct—impersonal—passionless. Again, as a matter of fact, all the basic axioms which underlie mathematics are "psychological axioms"; therefore it may happen that these "axioms" are not of the αinfinity type but are of the _f_ (_A_ _B_ _C_ ...) personal type and this may be why mathematics cannot account for psychological facts. If psychology is to be an _exact science_ it must be mathematical in principle. And, therefore, mathematics must find a way to embrace psychology. Here I will endeavor to outline a way in which this can be done. To express it correctly is more than difficult: I beg the mathematical reader to tolerate the form and look for the sense or even the feelings in what I attempt to express. To make it less shocking to the ear of the pure mathematician, I will use for the “infinitesimals” the words “very small numbers,” for the “finite” the words “normal numbers” and for the “transfinite” the words “very great numbers.” Instead of using the word “number” I will sometimes use the word “magnitude” and under the word “infinity” I will understand the meaning as “limitless.” The base of the whole of mathematics or rather the starting point of mathematics was “psychological truths,” axioms concerning normal numbers, and magnitudes that were tangible for the senses. Here to my mind is to be found the kernel of the whole trouble. The _base_ of mathematics was _f_ (_A_ _B_ _C_ ... _M_ ...); the _work_, or the development, of mathematics is _f_ (_M_); this is the reason for the “ghosts” in the background of mathematics. The _f_ (_M_) evolved from this _f_ (_A_ _B_ _C_ ... _M_ ...) _base_ a wonderful abstract theory absolutely correct for the normal, the very small, and for the very great numbers. But the rules which govern the small numbers, the normal, or psychological numbers, and the great numbers, are not the same. As a matter of fact, in the meantime, the physical world, the psychological world, is composed exclusively of very great numbers and of very small magnitudes (atoms, electrons, etc.). It seems to me that, if we want really to understand the world and man, we shall have to start from the beginning, from 0, then take the next very small number as the first _finite_ or “normal number”; then the old finites or the normal numbers would become very great numbers and the old very-great numbers would become the very great of the second order and so on. Such transposed mathematics would become psychological and philosophic mathematics and mathematical philosophy would become philosophic mathematics. The immediate and most vital effect would be, that the _start_ would be made not somewhere in the middle of the magnitudes but from the beginning, or from the limit “zero,” from the “0”—from the intrinsic “to be or not to be”—and the next to it would be the very first small magnitude, the physical and therefore psychological continuum (I use the words physical continuum in the way Poincaré used them) would become a mathematical continuum in this new philosophic mathematics. This new branch of philosophic, psychological mathematics would be absolutely rigorous, correct and _true_ in addition to which, maybe, it would change or enlarge and make humanly tangible for the layman, the concept of numbers, continuum, infinity, space, time and so on. Such a mathematics would be the mathematics for the time-binding psychology. Mathematical philosophy is the highest philosophy in existence; nevertheless, it could be changed to a still higher order in the way indicated here and become philosophic or psychological mathematics. This new science, of course, would not change the ordinary mathematics for ordinary purposes. It would be a special mathematics for the study of Man dealing only with the “natural finites” (the old infinitesimals) and great numbers of different orders (including the normal numbers), but starting from a real, common base—from 0, and next to it very small number, which is a common _tangible_ base for _psychological_ as well as _analytical_ truths.

This new philosophic mathematics would eliminate the concept of “infinitesimals” as such, which is an _artificial_ concept and is not as a _concept_ an element of Nature. The so-called _infinitesimals are Nature’s real, natural finites_. In mathematics the infinitesimals were an analytical—an “_M_”—time-binding—necessity, because of our starting point. I repeat once again that this transposition of our starting point would not affect the normal mathematics for normal purposes; it would build rather a new philosophic mathematics rigorously correct where analytical facts would be also psychological facts. This new mathematics would not only give correct results but also _true_ results. Keeping in mind _both_ conceptions of time, the scientific time and the psychological time, we may see that the human capacity of “Time-binding” is a very practical one and that this time-binding faculty is a _functional_ name and definition for what we broadly mean by human “intelligence”; which makes it obvious that time (in any understanding of the term) is somehow very closely related to intelligence—the mental and spiritual activities of man. _All we know about _“time”_ will explain to us a great deal about Man, and all we know about Man will explain to us a great deal about time_, if we consider _facts_ alone. The “ghosts” in the background will rapidly vanish and become intelligible facts for philosophic mathematics. The most vital importance, nevertheless, is that taking zero as the limit and the next to it very small magnitude for the real starting point, it will give us a mathematical science from a natural base where _correct_ formulas will be also true formulas and will correspond to psychological truths.

We have found that man is an exponential function where time enters as an exponent. If we compare the formula for organic growth _y==e__kt_, with the formula “_P R__T_,” we see that they are of the same type and the _law of organic growth_ applies to the human _time-binding energy_. We see, too, that the time-binding energy is also “_alive_” and multiplying in larger and larger families. The formula for the decomposing of radium is the same—only the exponent is negative instead of positive. This fact is indeed very curious and suggestive. Procreation, the organic growth, is also some function of time. I call “time-linking” for the sake of difference. Whether the energy of procreation or that of “time-linking” can be accounted for in units of chemical energy taken up in food, I do not know. Not so with the mind—this “time-binding,” higher exponential energy, “able to direct basic powers.” If we analyse this energy, free from any speculation, we will find that this higher energy which is somehow directly connected with “time”—no matter what time is—is able to _produce_, by transformation or by drawing on other sources of energy, new energies unknown to nature. Thus the solar energy transformed into coal is, for instance, transformed into the energy of the drive of a piston, or the rotary energy in a steam engine, and so on. It is obvious that no amount of _chemical_ energy in food can account for such an energy as the time-binding energy. There is only one supposition left, namely, that the time-binding apparatus has a source for its tremendous energy in the _transformation of organic atoms_, and—what is very characteristic—the results are _time_-binding energies.

This supposition is almost a certainty because it seems to be the only possible supposition to account for that energy. This supposition, which seems to be the only supposition, would bring us to face striking facts, namely, the transformation of organic atoms, which means a direct drawing upon the cosmic energy; and this cosmic energy—time—and intelligence are somehow connected—if not indeed equivalent. Happily these things can be verified in scientific laboratories. Radium was discovered only a few years ago and is still very scarce, but the results for science and life are already tremendous because scientific methods were applied in the understanding and use of it. We did not use any zoological or theological methods, but just direct, correct and scientific methods. There is no scarcity in “human radium,” but, to my knowledge, physicists have never attempted to study this energy from that point of view. I am confident that, if once they start, there will be results in which all the so-called “supernatural, spiritual, psychic” phenomena, such as are not fakes, will become scientifically understood and will be consciously utilized. Now they are mostly wasted or only played with. It may happen that the science of Man—as the science of time-binding—will disclose to us the inner and final secrets—the final truth—of nature, valid in infinity.

It is very difficult to give in such a book as this an adequate list of the literature which may help to orient the reader in a general way in the great advance science has made in the last few years. This book is a pioneer book in its own way, and so there are no books dealing directly with its subject. There are two branches of science and one art which are fundamental for the further development of the subject; these two sciences are (1) Mathematical philosophy and (2) Scientific biology, the art is the art of creative engineering.

In mathematical philosophy there are to my knowledge only four great mathematical writers who treat the subject as a distinct science. They are two English scientists, Bertrand Russell and A. N. Whitehead; one Frenchman, Henri Poincaré (deceased); and one American, Professor C. J. Keyser. Messrs. Russell and Whitehead approach the problems from a purely logical point of view and therein lies the peculiar value of their work. Henri Poincaré was a physicist (as well as a mathematician) and, therefore, approaches the problems somewhat from a physicist’s point of view, a circumstance giving his philosophy its particular value. Professor Keyser approaches the problems from both the logical and the warmly human points of view; in this is the great human and practical value of his work.

These four scientists are unique in their respective elaborations and elucidations of mathematical philosophy. It is not for me to advise the reader what selections to make, for if a thorough knowledge of the subject is desired the reader should read all these books, but not all readers are willing to make that effort toward clear thinking (which in the meantime will remain of the _highest_ importance in science). Some readers will wish to select for themselves and to facilitate their selection I will lay out a “Menu” of this intellectual feast by giving in some cases the chapter heads.

For many temporary reasons I was not able, before going into print, to give a fuller list of the writings of those four unique men; but there is no stroke of their pen but which should be read with great attention—besides which there is a very valuable literature about their work.

(1) The purely mathematical foundation:

RUSSELL, BERTRAND.

“The Principles of Mathematics.” Cambridge University, 1903.

(I am not giving any selections from the contents of this book because this book should, without doubt, be read by every one interested in mathematical philosophy.)

“The Problems of Philosophy.” H. Holt & Co., N. Y., 1912.

“Our Knowledge of the External World, as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy.” Chicago, 1914.

“Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy.” Macmillan, N. Y.

Selection from contents: Definition of number. The Definition of order. Kinds of relations. Infinite cardinal numbers. Infinite series and ordinals. Limits and continuity. The axiom of infinity and logical types. Classes. Mathematics and logic.

“Mysticism and Logic.” Longmans Green & Co. 1919. N. Y.

Selection from contents: Mathematics and the metaphysicians. On scientific method in philosophy. The ultimate constituents of matter. On the notion of cause.

WHITEHEAD, ALFRED N.

“An Introduction to Mathematics.” Henry Holt & Co. 1911. N. Y.

“The Organization of Thought Educational and Scientific.” London, 1917.

Selections from contents: The principles of mathematics in relation to elementary teaching. The organization of thought. The anatomy of some scientific ideas. Space, time, and relativity.

“An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge.” Cambridge, 1919.

Selection from contents: The traditions of science. The data of science. The method of extensive abstraction. The theory of objects.

“The Concept of Nature.” Cambridge, 1920.

Selection from contents: Nature and thought. Time. The method of extensive abstraction. Space and motion. Objects. The ultimate physical concepts.

“Principia Mathematica.” By A. N. Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. Cambridge, 1910-1913.

This monumental work stands alone. “As a work of constructive criticism it has never been surpassed. To every one and especially to philosophers and men of natural science, it is an amazing revelation of how the familiar terms with which they deal plunge their roots far into the darkness beneath the surface of common sense. It is a noble monument to the critical spirit of science and to the idealism of our time.”

“Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking.” C. J. Keyser.

(2) The physicist’s point of view:

POINCARÉ, HENRI.

“The Foundations of Science.” The Science Press, N. Y., 1913.

Selection from contents: Science and hypothesis. Number and magnitude. Space. Force. Nature. II. The value of science. The mathematical sciences. The physical sciences. The objective value of science. III. Science and method. Science and the scientist. Mathematical reasoning. The new mechanics. Astronomic science.

(3) The human, civilizing, practical life, point of view:

KEYSER, CASSIUS J.

“Science and Religion: The Rational and the Super-rational.” The Yale University Press.

“The New Infinity and the Old Theology.” The Yale University Press.

“The Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking.” Essays and Addresses. Columbia University Press, 1916.

Selection from contents: The human worth of rigorous thinking. The human significance of mathematics. The walls of the world; or concerning the figure and the dimensions of the Universe of space. The universe and beyond. The existence of the hypercosmic. The axiom of infinity: A new presupposition of thought. Research in American Universities. Mathematical productivity in the United States.

“Mathematical Philosophy, the Study of Fate and Freedom. Lectures for Educated Laymen.” Forthcoming Book.

Selection from contents of general interest: The mathematical obligations of philosophy. Humanistic and industrial education. Logic the muse of thought. Radiant aspects of an over-world.—Verifiers and falsifiers. Significance and nonsense.—Distinction of logical and psychological. A diamond test of harmony.—Distinction of doctrine and method.—Theoretical and practical doubt.—Mathematical philosophy in the rôle of critic. A world uncriticised—the garden of the devil. “Supersimian” Wisdom. Autonomous truth and autonomous falsehood. Other Varieties of truth and untruth. Mathematics as the study of fate and freedom. The prototype of reasoned discourse often disguised as in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Origin of Species, the Sermon on the Mount.—Nature of mathematical transformation. No transformation, no thinking. Transformation law essentially psychological, Relation function and transformation as three aspects of one thing. Its study, the common enterprise of science. The static and the dynamic worlds. The problem of time and kindred problems. Importation of time and suppression of time as the classic devices of sciences.—The nature of invariance. The ages-old problem of permanence and change. The quest of what abides in a fluctuant world as the binding thread of human history. The tie of comradeship among the enterprises of human spirit.—The concept of a group. The notion simply exemplified in many fields, is “Mind” a group. The philosophy of the cosmic year.—Limits and limit processes omnipresent as ideals and idealization, in all thought and human aspiration. Ideals the flint of reality.—Mathematical infinity, its dynamic and static aspects. Need of history of the Imperious concept. The rôle of infinity in a mighty poem.—Meaning of dimensionality. Distinction of imagination and conception. Logical existence and sensuous existence. Open avenues to unimaginable worlds.—The theory of logical types. A supreme application of it to definition of man, and the science of human welfare.—The psychology of mathematics and the mathematics of psychology. Both of them in their infancy. Consequent retardation of science. The symmetry of thought. The asymmetry of imagination.—Science and engineering. Science as engineering in preparation. Engineering as science in action. Mathematics the guide of the engineer. Engineering the guide of humanity. Humanity the civilizing or Time-Binding class of life. Qualities essential to engineering leadership. The ethics of the art. The engineer as educator, as scientist, as philosopher, as psychologist, as economist, as statesman, as mathematical thinker—as a Man.

Appendix II. Biology And Time-Binding

The life of one man is short, and to very few is it given to achieve much in their lifetime. Extensive achievements are made almost entirely by many men taking up the work done by a discoverer. In such a case, we arrive at a _complete_ “truth,” not by the production of one man but by a chain of men, but the initial discovery not only has to be produced but correctly defined before it can be used and that is the important point to be made. What we do not realize is the tremendous amount of mental work that is lost by an incorrect use of words.

Human thought—that unique, subtle and yet most energetic phenomenon of nature—is in the main wantonly wasted, because we do not use, or take pains to use, suitable language; at the same time, false definitions lead to consequences not merely wasteful but positively harmful. When ideas and facts are falsely defined, they tend to bring us to false conclusions, and false conclusions lead us in wrong directions, and life and knowledge greatly suffer in consequence. Our progress is not a well ordered pursuit after truth, as pure chance plays too large a part in it.

Until lately, logic was supposed to be the science of correct thinking, but modern thought has progressed so far that the old logic is not able to handle the great accumulated volume—the great complicated mass of existing ideas and facts—and so we are forced to look for another instrument much more expedient and powerful. There is no need to establish a new science to replace logic; we simply have to look closer into the sciences at hand and realize the fact, which was with us all the time, namely, that mathematics and mathematical reasoning is nothing else than the true logic of nature—nature’s universal tongue—the one means of expression that is the same for all peoples. This is not a play on words, it is a fact which, after investigation, everybody must admit. Everybody who wants to think logically must think mathematically or give up any pretense of correct thinking—there is no escape and all who refuse to investigate the justice of this statement put themselves outside the pale of logically thinking people. The application of rigorous thinking to life will even revolutionize scientific methods by the introduction of right definitions, correct classifications, just language, and so will lead to trustworthy results. Very probably all our doctrines and creeds will have to be revised; some rejected, some rectified, some broadened; bringing about unanimity of all sciences and thus greatly increasing their effectiveness in the pursuit of truth. This application of mathematics to life will even revolutionize mathematics itself. In App. I it is suggested tentatively how this may be accomplished.

As the seemingly ultimate and highest experimentally known energy is the human time-binding energy, this new concept may lead to a change in our present concepts of matter, space and time, in much the same way as the discovery of radium has affected them. This problem can be solved only by _scientific_ experiments with the _time_-binding energy.

In many, even in most, of the cases, the analysis of these phenomena presents great technical difficulty, but why confuse our minds by being afraid of, or being a slave of words? If instead of calling wine _wine_, we called it by its chemical formula, would this, in any way, change the quality of wine? Of course not. All the “qualities” will remain because they are facts, and cannot be altered by words.

A most pathetic picture of the havoc and chaos which wrong use of words brings into life and science is exhibited in all fields of thought by the endless and bitter fighting over words not well defined. Mathematics has been able to make its most stupendous achievements because of its method of exact analysis of the continuum, dimensions, classes, relations, functions, transfinite numbers, etc., and also of space and time. Hitherto, not all of these conceptions in their sharply defined form have had direct application to our daily life or to our world conception. The thoughts expressed in App. I may suggest this “missing link”—connecting mathematics more intimately with life.

Modern science knows that all energies can be somehow transformed from one kind to another and that all of them represent one type of energetic phenomena, no matter what is the origin of each. For example, a galvanic or chemical battery produces the same kind of electricity as the mechanical process of friction or the interaction of cosmic laws as in the dynamo. In some instances, when our systems are suitably adjusted, the transformations are reversible, that is, the energy results in a chemical process—an accumulator; the chemical process results in electricity—the galvanic battery; motion results in electricity—the dynamo; electricity results in motion—the electric motor; etc. We know all energies are somehow related to each other, in that their transformation is possible. The effects produced by the same type of energy are absolutely the same—no matter what its origin. The marvel of an electric lamp is the same marvel, whether the origin of the electricity be chemical, mechanical or cosmic as in the dynamo. The experiments in scientific biology have proved this to be true in living organisms and just this is the tremendous importance of the discoveries in scientific biology. Light and other energies react on organisms in the same way as the chemical reactions and these phenomena are reversible. More than that, living complex organisms have been produced which grew to maturity through a chemical or mechanical treatment of the egg, and this has been accomplished in the infancy of scientific biology! (See _The Organisms as a Whole_, by Jacques Loeb.)

All phenomena _in nature_ are _natural_ and should be approached as _such_. The human mind is at least an energy which can direct other energies; it is incorrect and misleading to call it _super_natural. It is of course true that we do not fully understand the nature of the human mind and we shall learn to understand it when and only when we acquire sense enough to recognize it as _natural_. If we persist in saying and believing that the “spiritual evidences cannot be explained on a material base,” this statement should be equally applicable to electricity or radium. If this statement is false for these phenomena, it is equally false for the mind or the so-called spiritual and will powers. The scientific understanding of these phenomena will not “degrade” these phenomena, _because that cannot be done. Facts remain facts and no scientific explanation of a phenomenon can lower or degrade that which is a fact._ Electricity is electricity and nothing else, no matter what its origin; human time-binding energies (embracing all faculties) are the highest of the known energies—equally magnificent and astonishing—no matter what the base; and the scientific understanding of them will only _add_ to our respect for them and for ourselves; it will unmistakably help us to develop them indefinitely by mathematical analysis. The _base_ is not the phenomenon—sulphuric acid and zinc _are not_ electricity; time-binding energies _are not_ a pound of beefsteak, although a pound of beefsteak may help to save life and be therefore _instrumental_ in the production of a poem or of a sonata; but by no means can a beefsteak be taken for either of them.

I have attempted, with some measure of success I trust, to solve these problems in science and life; the results are astonishing, as they lead us to a much higher and more embracing ethics than society has ever had. By this analysis I prove that the understanding of this most stupendous but NATURAL phenomenon of human life brings us to the scientifical source of ethics and I prove that the so-called “highest ideals of humanity” have nothing of “sentimentalism” or of the “_super_natural” in them, but are exclusively the _fulfilment_ of the _natural laws_ for the _human class of life_. The recognition of the fact that the phenomena of the human mind are natural and as such conform to natural law has the further advantage over the “supernatural” attitude in that we can no more evade a law of human nature than the law of gravity; in other words, human ethics will have the validity of natural law. With the supernatural attitude, it was simple enough to avoid the issues of life, by a simple statement—“I do not believe”—and that was enough to break all bonds and be free from the “supernatural morale”—but to get away from the “natural morale” and _remain_ HUMAN is IMPOSSIBLE. Whereas, with an artificially formulated morale it was easy enough to break away by a simple mental speculation, and feel perfectly satisfied as long as one escaped the jail; with a morale made clear that it is a NATURAL LAW for the human class of life, the curtain of sophistry and speculation is removed and everyone who breaks away from the NATURAL LAWS FOR HUMANS, WILL KNOW BY HIMSELF, THAT HE IS OUTSIDE THE LAW—FOR HUMANS.

Engineers are not metaphysicians, their field is not one of clever argument but one of proved facts; their work is not to befog the air with cloudy expressions or sophistry, but to create; their method is scientific and their tool is mathematics. It is known that in remote antiquity, in some temples electrical phenomena were known and were used to keep the ignorant masses in awe and obedience. Shall we follow the methods used by those magicians or shall we squarely face facts? Shall we look upon life, and the usually so-called mental, spiritual phenomena, etc., as _super_natural, simply because we do not understand them? It seems evident that everything which _exists in nature, is natural_, no matter how simple or complicated a phenomenon it is; and on no occasion can the so-called “_super_natural” be anything else than a completely natural law, though it may, at the moment, be above or beyond our present understanding. The attitude of mind which admits the _super_natural blinds and frustrates any analysis or any attempt at analysis. The unprejudiced analysis of the so-called “supernatural” does not _alter_ any part of the strange and high functions of it. The phenomena of the human time-binding energy are and will remain the most precious, subtle and highest of known functions, no matter what the origin. _Facts_ may not be _denied_ or _falsified_ if analysis is to arrive at correct conclusions. The high dimensionality of the human mind, the so-called spiritual and will powers, _are facts_ and must be _accepted_ as such. It is about time to establish an exact science to deal with them. The problems of animal life were approached without prejudice, no supernatural “spark” was bothering us in our analysis—an animal was an animal and nothing else—we did not intermix dimensions, therefore we see that the “social structure” of the animals on a farm never breaks down as they are managed on a scientific base with an understanding of _their_ proper standards. Animals to-day live more happily than man. We don’t allow animals to practice the “survival of the fittest,” or “competition,” which is far too destructive. Our present social system imposes these disastrous methods upon man alone, and the result is that the hideous proverb “Homo homini lupus” has become true.

In modern science facts are not wanting, we have first but to know them. If we take, for example, sulphuric acid and zinc and make what we call a galvanic battery, we see that from two chemical substances a third—a salt—is made in addition to which we have a peculiar energy produced called electricity. Who does not know the marvelous properties of this phenomenon?

Scientific biology has made tremendous progress lately; engineers cannot afford to ignore the facts established in laboratory researches. The problem of “life” and of other energies, hitherto considered “_super_natural,” is well in hand, and proves to be none the less astonishing though entirely natural. A number of scientists all over the world are working at this problem and the scientific facts which they have established, and which cannot now be denied, belong to-day to the realm of practical life. Engineers, of course, have to know these facts; mathematicians have to establish correct dimensions in the study of all the sciences and people will have to study mathematical philosophy; only then can the process of integration in any phase of thought be made without mistakes. There is no escape from that, if _truth_ is what we really want. But here one objection may be raised, an objection which for some is a serious one indeed; namely, what will take the place of the old philosophy, law and ethics, if human life is nothing else than a physico-chemical process? To quote Doctor Jacques Loeb from his _Mechanistic Conception of Life_: “If on the basis of a serious survey, this question (_that all life phenomena can be unequivocally explained in physico-chemical terms_—Author) can be answered in the affirmative, our social and ethical life will have to be put on a scientific basis and our rules of conduct must be brought into harmony with the results of scientific biology. Not only is the mechanistic conception of life compatible with ethics, it seems the only conception of life which can lead to an understanding of the source of ethics.”

I hope to have proved in this book that _scientific_ ethics is based on natural laws for the human class of life; that it is based on the experimentally proved fact that Man is a Time-binder, naturally active as such in time; and that this concept or definition of Man is rigorously scientific and accounts for the highest functions of man—the highest of the mental and spiritual perfections—without the need of any “_super_natural” hypothesis.

Scientific biology proves the fact that life and all of its phenomena are the results of some special physico-chemical processes, which manifest themselves in some peculiar energies, of which the human mind is the highest known form. These processes are known to be reversible, in that some of these peculiar energies cause physico-chemical changes in their own base; the process involved I propose to call biolysis, as I propose to call biolyte the substances produced. These phenomena have a parallel analogy in inorganic chemistry—in electricity—the difference being only in the scale or dimension. When an electric current is passed through a special battery called an accumulator or reversible battery, chemical changes occur, in that new compounds are formed which possess a reversible capacity; namely, in reproducing the former materials—that is, electricity is generated. This process of forming chemical substances by the passing of an electrical current is called electrolysis and the product so produced is called electrolyte. At the same time it is a known fact that organic chemistry is infinitely more complicated and variable than inorganic chemistry. The energy produced by the reactions of some organic chemical groups are, therefore, of a more complicated character and of another dimension. One of these energies of organic chemistry which lately has come into the scope of scientific analysis is called life—its physico-chemical base is the protoplasm, which _result_ I call the “time-linking” capacity or energy. This name is important for the consequences it will bring about later on. The time-binding capacity or energy of man (no matter what time is—if it is), which is unique to man, is a most subtle complex; it is the highest known energy and probably has many subdivisions. Ears are sensitive to the vibration of the air. Eyes are sensitive to the more subtle vibrations of light; in a similar way, the time-binding apparatus is sensitive to the most subtle energies; besides which it has the capacity to register not only all of our sensations but also the time-binding energies of other people; and it apparently has the capacity to register the energies of the universe.

Here again we see the same continuity of phenomena; the protoplasm as a complex organic physico-chemical unit which has the peculiarity to “live,” to grow and multiply “autonomously” and this same autonomous peculiarity _applies_ to the _time-binding energy_; it grows and multiplies “autonomously” in its own dimension. The time-binding energy is a complex radiating energy somewhat like the emanations of radium and it probably also has many different subdivisions. _Note that the transformation of the atom_ or the transformation of _radio-active substances after passing different stages, is not complete but probably ends in lead, whereas the transformation which occurs in the production of the time-binding energy probably is complete or nearly complete and is that which I call the time-binding energy. (See _App. I_.)_ All the higher characteristics of man which it is customary to call the “mental, spiritual and will powers,” etc., are embraced in this exact definition of energy—in the capacity of time-binding. A diagram will better explain the continuity, evolution and mechanism of this time-binding energy.

[ A series of circles, connected by lines, the leftmost circle being C1, then next C2, and so on to C7. The first is connected to the second by line T1, the second to the third by T2, etc. Each circle after the first has within it an energy indication, E1, E2, etc. ]

Biology and Time-Binding.

_C__1_ is the physico-chemical base (for simplicity I represent the whole complex as one base) of the human time-binding energy. _T__1_ is the thought produced by a physico-chemical process (corresponding, for illustration’s sake only, to electricity produced by a galvanic battery). The thought _T__1_ in turn produces a physico-chemical effect _E__1_ on the base _C__1_ (corresponding for the same reason to electrolysis and electrolyte in electricity). _C__1_ and _E__1_ combined, or _C__2_ produces _T__2_ which again in turn affects the base and produces a physico-chemical effect _E__2_, this new combination produces the energy _T__3_, and so on ... theoretically without limits, as long as there is _any source_ of energy upon which this special energy can draw. This theory which I call the “spiral theory” represents a suggestive working mechanism of the time-binding energy and is in accord with the latest scientific discoveries. It explains the processes of all the mental and so-called spiritual energies which have been such a puzzle to humanity, and it also explains other phenomena which, until now, have had no scientific explanation whatever.

The animals are _not_ time-binding, they have _not_ the capacity of the “spiral”; therefore, they have not autonomous progress. At the same time, it will be obvious that if we teach humans false ideas, we affect their time-binding capacities and energies very seriously, by affecting in a wrong way the physico-chemical base. This energy is so peculiar that it embraces, if I may use the old expression, the highest ideals (when the time-binding energy is unobstructed and is allowed to work normally), and also the most criminal ideas (when the time-binding energy is obstructed by false teachings and in consequence works abnormally). We cannot make animals moral or immoral because they have not this time-binding capacity. Whereas human progress can be very seriously affected by false ideas; in other words, the biolyte of false teachings in the animal dimension must be very different from the biolyte of true ideas in the human dimension. Nature or nature’s laws happily cannot be completely deviated from or violated—the time-binding energy cannot be completely suppressed in the time-binding class of life. The false teachings that we are animals and essentially brutal and selfish can, of course, degrade human nature not only down to the animal level but lower still. Happily now science can explain and prove how fundamentally fiendish in effect are these teachings in the life and progress of human beings. It will be a shock to those who teach, preach and practice animal standards and in the same breath contradict themselves in any talking about “immortality” and “salvation”; a little thought makes it perfectly clear that “animal standards” and “salvation” or “immortality” simply exclude each other. With the natural law of time-binding realized, the way is open to entering scientifically upon the problem of immortality. The time-binding energies as well as “life” follow the same type of exponential function. “The constant synthesis then of specific material from simple compounds of a non-specific character is the chief feature by which living matter differs from non-living matter.... This problem of synthesis leads to the assumption of immortality of the living cell, since there is no _a priori_ reason why this synthesis should ever come to a standstill of its own accord as long as enough food is available and the proper outside physical conditions are guaranteed.... The idea that the body cells are naturally immortal and die only if exposed to extreme injuries such as prolonged lack of oxygen or too high a temperature helps to make one problem more intelligible. The medical student, who for the first time realizes that life depends upon that one organ, the heart, doing its duty incessantly for the seventy years or so allotted to man, is amazed at the precariousness of our existence. It seems indeed uncanny that so delicate a mechanism should function so regularly for so many years. The mysticism connected with this and other phenomena of adaptation would disappear if we would be certain that all cells are really immortal and that the fact which demands an explanation is not the continued activity but the cessation of activity in death. Thus we see that the idea of the immortality of the body cell if it can be generalized may be destined to become one of the main supports for a complete physico-chemical analysis of life phenomena since it makes the durability of organisms intelligible....” (_The Organism as a Whole_, by Jacques Loeb.)

The outlook for those who live and profess selfish, greedy, “space-binding animal standards” is not very promising as disclosed by the “spiral,” but unhappily we cannot help them; only time-binding—only fulfilling the natural laws for humans—can give them the full benefit of their natural capacities by which they will be able to raise themselves above animals and their fate.

The results obtained in scientific biological researches are growing very rapidly and every advance in their knowledge proves this theory to be true. If they differ in a few instances it is not because the principles of this theory are wrong, but because they intermix dimensions and use words not sufficiently defined which always results in confusion and the checking of the progress of science.

Most of the problems touched upon in this appendix from a mathematical point of view are based upon laboratory facts. We have only to collect them and there is little need of imagination to see their general bearing. Since we have discovered the fact that Man is a time-binder (no matter what time is) and have introduced the sense of dimensionality into the study of life phenomena in general, a great many facts which were not clear before become very clear now.

I wrote this book on a farm without any books at hand and I had been out of touch with the progress of science for the five years spent in the war service and war duties. My friend Dr. Grove-Korski, formerly at Berkeley University, drew my attention particularly to the books of Dr. Jacques Loeb. I found there a treasury of laboratory facts which illustrate as nothing better could, the correctness of my theory. I found with deep satisfaction that the new “scientific biology” is scientific because it has used mathematical methods with notable regard to dimensionality—they do not “milk an automobile.”

For the mathematician and the engineer, the “tropism theory of animal conduct,” founded by Dr. J. Loeb, is of the greatest interest, because this is a theory which analyses the functions and reactions of an organism _as a whole_ and therefore there is no chance for confusion of ideas or the intermixing of dimensions.

“Physiologists have long been in the habit of studying not the reactions of the whole organism but the reactions of isolated segments; the so-called reflexes. While it may seem justifiable to construct the reactions of the organism as a whole from the individual reflexes, such an attempt is in reality doomed to failure, since the reactions produced in an isolated element cannot be counted upon to occur when the same element is part of the whole, on account of the mutual inhibitions which the different parts of the organism produce upon each other when in organic connection; and it is, therefore, impossible to express the conduct of a whole animal as the algebraic sum of the reflexes of its isolated segments.... It would, therefore, be a misconception to speak of tropism as of reflexes, since tropisms are reactions of the organism as a whole, while reflexes are reactions of isolated segments. Reflexes and tropisms agree, however, in one respect, inasmuch as both are obviously of a purely physico-chemical character.” _Forced Movements—Tropism and Animal Conduct._ By Jacques Loeb.

I will quote here only a very few passages, but these books are of such importance that every mathematician and engineer should read them. They are, if I may say so, a “mathematical biology”—the survey of a life long study of “tropisms,” which is the name given to express “forced movements” in organisms. They give the quintessence of laboratory experiments as to what are the effects of different energies such as light (heliotropism), electricity (galvanotropism), gravity (geotropism), etc., in their reaction and influence upon the movements and actions of living organisms. These experiments are conclusive and the conclusions arrived at cannot be overlooked or evaded. The tremendous practical results of such scientific methods are based upon two principles, namely: that, (1) the scientists must think mathematically, their studies of the phenomena must be in “systems” as a complex whole, and they must not intermix dimensions; (2) they must see the danger and not be afraid of old words with wrong meanings, but must use clear and rigorous thinking to eliminate the prejudices in science—the poison of metaphysical speculating with words, or verbalism. These books give ample proofs of how misleading and obscuring are the words used and how basically wrong are the conclusions arrived at by such scientists as still persist in using the anthropomorphic or teleological methods of analysis. If a sceptical or doubtful reader is interested to see an ample proof of how deadly is the effect which an incorrect or unmathematical manner of thinking brings into science and life—he also may be referred to these books. The following quotations prove biologically that man is of a totally different dimension—a totally different being than an animal. From Dr. Conklin I quote only from his _Heredity and Environment_ and to save a repetition of the title of the book, I will indicate the quotations by using only his name. (All italics are indicated by A. K.)

“It would be of the greatest importance to show directly that the _homologous proteins of different species are different_. _This has been done_ for hemoglobins of the blood by Reichert and Brown, who have shown by crystallographic measurements that the hemoglobins of any species are definite substances for that species.... The following sentences by Reichert and Brown seem to indicate that this may be true for the crystals of hemoglobin. ‘_The hemoglobins of any species are different substances for that species._ But upon comparing the corresponding substances hemoglobins in different species of a genus it is generally found that they differ the one from the other to a greater or less degree; the differences being such that when complete crystallographic data are available the different _species can be distinguished_ by these _differences in their hemoglobins_’.... The facts thus far reported imply the suggestion that heredity of the genus is determined by the proteins of a definite constitution differing from the proteins of other genera. This constitution of the proteins would therefore be responsible for the genus heredity. The different species of a genus have all the same genus proteins, but the proteins of each species of the same genus are apparently different again in chemical constitution and hence they may give rise to the specific biological or immunity reactions.” _The Organism as a Whole_, by Jacques Loeb.

“_All peculiarities which are characteristic of a race, species, genus, order, class and phylum are of course inherited_, otherwise there would be no constant characteristics of these groups and no possibility of classifying organisms. The chief characters of every living thing are unalterably fixed by heredity. Men do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles. Every living thing produces off-spring after its own kind, Men, horses, cattle; birds, reptiles, fishes; insects, mollusks, worms; polyps, sponges, micro-organisms,—all of the million known species of animals and plants differ from one another because of inherited peculiarities, _because they have come from different kinds of germ cells_.” Conklin.

“The entire organism consisting of structures and functions, body and mind, develops out of the germ, and the organization of the germ determines all the possibilities of development of the mind no less than of the body, though the actual realization of any possibility is dependent also upon environmental stimuli.”... Conklin.

“The development of the mind _parallels that of the body_; whatever the ultimate relation of the mind and body may be, there can be _no_ reasonable _doubt_ that the two develop together from the germ. It is a curious fact that many people who are seriously disturbed by scientific teaching as to the evolution or gradual development of the human race accept with equanimity the universal observation as to the development of the human individual,—mind as well as body. The animal ancestry of the race is surely no more disturbing to philosophical or religious beliefs than the germinal origin of the individual, and yet the latter is a fact of universal observation which cannot be relegated to the domain of hypothesis or theory, and which can not be successfully denied.... Now we know that the child comes from the germ cells which are not made by the bodies of the parents but have arisen by the division of the antecedent germ cell. _Every cell comes from a pre-existing cell_ by a process of division, and _every germ cell comes from a pre-existing germ cell_. Consequently it is not possible to hold, that the body generates germ cells, nor that the soul generates souls. The only possible scientific position is that the _mind_ or soul as well as the body develops from the _germ_.

“No fact in human experience is more certain than that the mind develops by gradual and natural processes from a simple condition which can scarcely be called mind at all; no fact in human experience is fraught with greater practical and philosophical significance than this, and yet no fact is more generally disregarded.” Conklin.

“Doubtless the elements of which _consciousness_ develops are _present in the germ cells_, in the same sense that the elements of the other psychic processes or of the organs of the body are there present; not as a miniature of the adult condition, but rather in the form of elements or factors, which by long series of combinations and transformations, due to interactions with one another and with the environment, give rise to the fully developed condition.... It is an interesting fact that in man, and in several other animals which may be assumed to have a sense of identity, the nerve cells, especially those of the _brain_, _cease dividing_ at an early age, and these identical cells persist throughout the remainder of life.”...

“The hen does not produce the egg, but the egg produces the hen and also other eggs. Individual traits are not transmitted from the hen to the egg, but they develop out of germinal factors which are carried along from _cell to cell, and from generation to generation_....”

“The germ is the undeveloped organism which forms the bond between successive generations; the person is the developed organism which arises from the germ under the influence of environmental conditions, the person develops and dies in each generation; the germ-plasm is the continuous stream of living substance which connects all generations. The person nourishes and protects the germ, and in this sense the person is merely the carrier of the germ-plasm, the _mortal trustee_ of an immortal substance.” Conklin.

This is what I call “time-linking.” (Author.)

“Through intelligence and social cooperation he is able to control environment for particular ends, in a manner quite impossible in other organisms.... Other animals develop much more rapidly than man but that development sooner comes to an end. The children of lower races of man develop more rapidly than those of higher races but in such cases they also cease to develop at an earlier age. The prolongation of the period of infancy and of immaturity in the human race greatly increases the importance of environment and training as _factors of development_.” Conklin.

Another sidelight given on the “Spiral theory.” (Author.)

“In education also we are strangely blind to proper aims and methods. Any education is bad which leads to the formation of habits of idleness, carelessness, failure, instead of habits of industry, thoroughness and success. Any religious or social institution is bad which leads to habits of pious make-believe, insincerity, slavish regard for authority and disregard for evidence, instead of habits of sincerity, open-mindedness and independence....”

“All that man now is he has come to be without conscious human guidance. If evolution has progressed from the am[oe]ba to man without human interference, if the great progress from ape-like men to the most highly civilized races has taken place without conscious human control, the question may well be asked: Is it possible to improve on the natural method of evolution? It may not be possible to improve on the method of evolution and yet by intelligent action it may be possible to facilitate that method. _Man can not change a single law of nature but he can put himself into such relations to natural laws that he can profit by them._” Conklin.

This proves the great importance of KNOWING THE NATURAL LAWS for the human class of life, and making natural time-binding impulses conscious, for then only will the spiral give a logarithmical accumulation of the right kind, otherwise the biolyte will be “animal” in substance as well as in effect. Here it is immaterial how the first “time-binder” was produced; the fact that he is of another dimension is of the greatest importance.

“From sands to stars, from the immensity of the universe to the minuteness of the electron, in living things no less than in lifeless ones, science recognizes everywhere the inevitable sequence of cause and effect, the universality of natural processes, the reign of natural law. _Man also is a part of Nature, a part of the great mechanism of the_ universe, and all that he is and _does is limited and prescribed by laws of nature_. Every human being comes into existence by a process of development, every step of which is determined by antecedent causes.... Our anatomical, physiological, psychological possibilities were predetermined in the _germ cells_ from which we came....” Conklin.

This shows the importance of keeping the study of humans in their own dimensionality, and also the importance of finding the IMPERSONAL NATURAL LAWS for the human class of life. Now it can be realized that all the so-called human ideals are none else than the ever growing fulfillment of the NATURAL “TIME-BINDING” LAWS. This understanding will enable man to discover new “time-binding” laws for their conduct, their business relations, their state, which will not be a contradiction of the real, NATURAL LAWS but will be in accord with them; then and only then human progress will have a chance to develop peacefully.

“Adult characteristics are potential and not actual in the germ, and their actual appearance depends upon many complicated reactions of the germinal units with one another and with the environment. In short, our actual personalities are not predetermined in the germ cells, but our possible personalities are.... The influence of environment upon the minds and morals of men is especially great. To a large extent our habits, words, thoughts; our aspirations, ideals, satisfactions; our responsibility, morality, religion are the results of the environment and education of our early years....”

“Owing to this vastly greater power of memory, reflection and inhibition man is much freer than any other animal. Animals which learn little from experience have little freedom and the more they learn the freer they become....” Conklin.

It may be added here that the “spiral theory” explains how our reactions can be accelerated and elaborated by ourselves, and how truly we are the masters of our destinies.

“Because we can find no place in our philosophy and logic for self determination shall we cease to be scientists and close our eyes to the evidence? The first duty of science is to appeal to fact and to settle later with logic and philosophy....” Conklin.

There will be no difficulty in the settlement of facts with the new philosophy of “Human Engineering.”

“The analysis of instinct from a purely physiological point of view ultimately furnishes the data for a scientific ethics. Human happiness is based upon the possibility of a natural and harmonious satisfaction of the instincts.... It is rather remarkable that we should still be under the influence of an ethics which considers the human instincts in themselves low and their gratification vicious. That such an ethics must have had a comforting effect upon the orientals, whose instincts were inhibited or warped through the combined effects of an enervating climate, despotism and miserable economic conditions is intelligible, and it is perhaps due to a continuation of the unsatisfactory economic conditions that this ethics still prevails to some extent.... Lawyers, criminologists and philosophers frequently imagine that only want makes man work. This is an erroneous view. We are instinctively forced to be active in the same way as ants or bees. The instinct of workmanship would be the greatest source of happiness if it were not for the fact that our present social and economic organization allows only a few to satisfy this instinct. Robert Mayer has pointed out that any successful display or setting free of energy is a source of pleasure to us. This is the reason why the satisfaction of the instinct of workmanship is of such importance in the economy of life, for the play and learning of the child, as well as for the scientists or commercial work of the man.... We can vary at will the instincts of animals. A number of marine animals ... go away from the light, can be forced to go to light in two ways, first by lowering the temperature and second by increasing the concentration of the sea water, whereby the cells of the animals lose water. This instinct can be again reversed by raising the temperature or by lowering the concentration of the sea water. I have found repeatedly that by the same conditions by which phenomena of growth and organization can be controlled the instincts are controlled also. This indicates that there is a common basis for both classes of life phenomena. This common base is the physical and chemical character of the mixture of substances which we call protoplasm.... _The greatest happiness in life_ can be obtained only if _all instincts_, that of workmanship included, can be maintained at a certain _optimal intensity_. But while it is certain that the individual can ruin or diminish the value of its life by a onesided development of its instincts, e.g., dissipation, it is at the same time true that the _economic and social conditions can ruin or diminish the value of life for a great number of individuals_. It is no doubt true that in our present social and economic conditions more than ninety per cent of human beings lead an existence whose value is far below what it should be. They are compelled by want to sacrifice a number of instincts especially the most valuable among them, that of workmanship, in order to save the lowest and most imperative, that of eating. If those who amass immense fortunes could possibly intensify their lives with their abundance, it might perhaps be rational to let many suffer in order to have a few cases of true happiness. But for an increase of happiness only that amount of money is of service which can be used for the harmonious development and satisfaction of inherited instincts. For this, comparatively little is necessary. The rest is of no more use to a man than the surplus of oxygen in the atmosphere. As a matter of fact, the only true satisfaction a multimillionaire can possibly get from increasing his fortunes, is the satisfaction of the instinct of workmanship or the pleasure that is connected with a successful display of energy. The scientist gets this satisfaction without diminishing the value of life of his fellow being, and the same should be true for the business man.... Although we recognize no metaphysical free-will, we do not deny personal responsibility. We can fill the memory of the young generation with such associations as will prevent wrong doing or dissipation.... Cruelty in the penal code and the tendency to exaggerate punishment are sure signs of a low civilization and of an imperfect educational system.... It seems to me that we can no more expect to unravel the mechanism of associative memory by histological or morphological methods than we can expect to unravel the dynamics of electrical phenomena by microscopic study of cross-sections through a telegraph wire or by counting and locating the telephone connections in a big city. If we are anxious to develop a dynamic of the various life-phenomena, we must remember that the colloidal substances are the machines which produce the life phenomena, but the physics of these substances is still a science of the future.... Physiology gives us no answer to the latter question. The idea of specific energy has always been regarded as the terminus for the investigation of the sense organs. Mach expressed the opinion that chemical conditions lie at the foundation of sensation in general....” _Comparative Physiology of the Brain_, by Jacques Loeb.

Here it may be added that the “Instinct of Workmanship” in the animal class, becomes in the time-binding class of life the instinct of _creation_, and is nothing else than the expression of the natural impulse of the “Time-binding” energy. In the present social and economic system very few have a possibility to satisfy this instinct; scientific management is or may be satisfying the animal instinct of workmanship, but it is not satisfactory to the instinct of creation. “Time-binding” in its last analysis is creation and only such a social and economic system as will satisfy this want—this natural impulse—will satisfy Humans—the “Time-binders”—and will bring about their fullest growth in work and happiness.

“LAWS OF GROWTH” (from _Unified Mathematics_, by Louis C. Karpinski, Ph.D.). “_Compound interest function_.—The function _S_ = _P_(1 + _i_)_n_ is of fundamental importance in other fields than in finance. Thus the growth of timber of a large forest tract may be expressed as a function of this kind, the assumption being that in a large tract the rate of growth may be taken as uniform from year to year. In the case of bacteria growing under ideal conditions in a culture, _i.e._ with unlimited food supplied, the increase in the number of bacteria per second is proportional to the number of bacteria present at the beginning of that second. Any function in which the rate of change or rate of growth at any instant _t_ is directly proportional to the value of the function at the instant _t_ obeys what has been termed the ‘law of organic growth,’ and may be expressed by the equation,

_y = ce__kt_,

wherein _c_ and _k_ are constants determined by the physical facts involved, and _e_ is a constant of nature analogous to π. The constant _k_ is the proportionality constant and is negative when the quantity in question decreases; _c_ is commonly positive;

_e_ = 2.178....

“The values of the function of _x, ce__kx__, increase according to the terms of a geometrical progression as the variable x increases in arithmetical progression_....

“The most immediate application of a function in which the growth is proportional to the function itself is to the air. The decrease in the pressure of the air at the distance _h_ above the earth’s surface is proportional to _h_.

“The expression _P = 760 e__-h/7990_ gives the numerical value of the pressure in millimeters of mercury for _h_ measured in meters. The negative exponent indicates that the pressure decreases as _h_ increases. In inches as units of length of the mercury column, _h_ in feet,

_P = 29.92e__-h/26200_

This is known as Halley’s law.

“The growth of bean plants within limited intervals and the growth of children, again between quite restricted limits, follow approximately the law of organic growth. Radium in decomposing follows the same law; the rate of decrease at any instant being proportional to the quantity. In the case of vibrating bodies, like a pendulum, the rate of decrease of the amplitude follows this law; similarly in the case of a noise dying down and in certain electrical phenomena, the rate of decrease is proportional at any instant to the value of the function at the instant....

“_The Curve of Healing of a Wound._—Closely allied to the formulas expressing the law of organic growth, _y = e__kt_, and the law of ‘organic decay,’ _y = e__-kt_, is a recently discovered law which connects algebraically by an equation and graphically by a curve, the surface-area of a wound, with time expressed in days, measured from the time when the wound is aseptic or sterile. When this aseptic condition is reached, by washing and flushing continually with antiseptic solutions, two observations at an interval commonly of four days give the ‘index of the individual,’ and this index, and the two measurements of area of the wound-surface, enable the physician-scientist to determine the normal progress of the wound-surface, the expected decrease in area, for this wound-surface of this individual. The area of the wound is traced carefully on transparent paper, and then computed by using a mathematical machine, called a planimeter, which measures areas.

“The areas of the wound are plotted as ordinates with the respective times of observation measured in days as abscissas. After each observation and computation of area the point so obtained is plotted to the same axes as the graph which gives the ideal or prophetic curve of healing.

“When the observed area is found markedly greater than that determined by the ideal curve, the indication is that there is still infection in the wound.... A rather surprising and unexplained situation occurs frequently when the wound-surface heals more rapidly than the ideal curve would indicate; in this event secondary ulcers develop which bring the curve back to normal....

“This application of mathematics to medicine is largely due to Dr. Alexis Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research. He noted that the larger the wound-surface, the more rapidly it healed, and that the rate of healing seemed to be proportional to the area. This proportionality constant is not the same for all values of the surface or we would have an equation of the form,

_S = S__1__e__-kt_

in which _S_, is the area at the time that the wound is rendered sterile and observations to be plotted really begin....

“The data given are taken from the Journal of Experimental Medicine, reprints kindly furnished by Major George A. Stewart of the Rockefeller Institute. The diagrams are reproduced from the issue of Feb. 1, 1918, pp. 171 and 172, article by Dr. T. Tuffier and R. Desmarres, Auxiliary Hospital 75, Paris....

[ A graph, showing the progress of healing of a surface wound of the right leg of a 31-year-old patient. It shows that as time passes, the wounded area decreases. ]

Progress of healing of a surface wound of the right leg, patient’s age 31 years.

“WAVE MOTION. General.—In nature there are two types of recurrent motion, somewhat closely connected mathematically, in which repetition of motion occurs at regular intervals.

“One type of this motion, in cycles as we may say, repeats the motion in one place, and is in a sense stationary. The tuning fork in motion moves through the same space again and again; a similar movement is the motion of a vibrating string. Of this stationary type may be mentioned the heartbeats, the pulse, the respiration, the tides, and the rotation of a wheel about its axis.

“The second type of recurrent motion transmits or carries the vibratory impulse over an extent of space as well as time. The waves of the sea are of this character. Sound waves, electrical vibrations or waves, and radiant energy vibrations are transmitted by a process similar to that by which the waves of the sea are carried.

“Both of these types of motion are representable mathematically by equations involving a sequence of trigonometric functions. To the fundamental and basic function involved, _y_ = sin _x_, we will direct our attention in the next section and to simple applications in other sections of this chapter....

“Sound Waves.—If a tuning fork for note lower C is set to vibrating, the free bar makes 129 complete, back-and-forth, vibrations in one second. By attaching a fine point to the end of the bar and moving under this bar at a uniform rate, as it vibrates, a smoke-blackened paper, a sinusoidal curve is traced on the paper. Our curve is traced by a bar vibrating 50 times in 1 second.

[ A graph, showing a wavy line. “Tuning fork vibrations recorded on smoked paper.” ]

Tuning fork vibrations recorded on smoked paper.

“Corresponding to each movement of the vibrating rod there is a movement of the air. As the bar moves to the right it compresses the layer of air to its right and that _compression_ is immediately communicated to the layer of air to the right; as the bar moves back and to the left, the pressure on the adjacent air is released and a _rarefaction_ takes place. In 1/50 of 1 second you have the air adjacent to the rod _compressed_, back to normal, and _rarefied_; during this time the neighboring air is affected and the compression is communicated a distance which is the _wave length_ of this given sound wave. In 1 second this disturbance is transmitted 1100 feet at 44° Fahrenheit. The wave length for this sound wave then is 1100/50 = 22 feet.

“The wave length is commonly designated by λ. If _V_ is the velocity, and _t_ the time of one vibration, λ = _Vt_.”

[ A graph, showing five wavy lines, labeled “a”, “ou”, “r”, “E”, and “a”. “Vibration records produced by the voice: ‘a’ as in ‘ate’; ‘ou’ as in ‘about’; ‘r’ in ‘relay’; ‘e’ in ‘be’; and ‘a’ in ‘father’. The tuning fork record, frequency 50 per second, gives the vibration frequencies.” ]

“Vibration records produced by the voice: ‘a’ as in ‘ate’; ‘ou’ as in ‘about’; ‘r’ in ‘relay’; ‘e’ in ‘be’; and ‘a’ in ‘father’. The tuning fork record, frequency 50 per second, gives the vibration frequencies.”

This last drawing may help to visualize the fact in what manner wrong expressions and untrue teachings hamper the true progress of humanity. Every word has its energy and produces some physico-chemical effects in the time-binding apparatus in accord with the idea which we associate with the sound of the word. If we teach ideas which are untrue, then the physico-chemical effects produced are not proper—in other words the human mind does NOT WORK PROPERLY, that is, it does not work _naturally_ or _normally_ or true to the human dimension. There is every reason why the standards in our civilization are so low, because we have “poisoned,” in a literal sense of the word, our minds with the physico-chemical effects of wrong ideas. This correct NATURAL APPROACH to the “Time-binding” energies will make it obvious how unmeasured is the importance of the manner in which we handle this subtle mechanism, as the poisoning with wrong ideas or with careless or incorrect words does not in any way differ in consequences from poisoning with any other stupor-producing or wrongly stimulating poison.

Monographs on Experimental Biology and Physiology

LOEB, J.: “Comparative Physiology of the Brain and Comparative Psychology.” New York, 1900.

LOEB, J.: “Studies in General Physiology.” Chicago, 1905.

LOEB, J.: “The Dynamics of Living Matter.” New York, 1906.

LOEB, J.: “The Mechanistic Conception of Life.” Chicago, 1912.

Selection from contents: I. The Mechanistic Conception of Life. II. The Significance of Tropisms for Psychology. III. Some Fundamental Facts and Conceptions concerning the Comparative Physiology of the Central Nervous System. IV. Pattern Adaptation of Fishes and the Mechanism of Vision. V. On Some Facts and Principles of Physiological Morphology. VI. On the Nature of the Process of Fertilization. VII. On the Nature of Formative Stipulation (Artificial Parthenogenesis). VIII. The Prevention of the Death of the Egg through the Act of Fertilization. IX. The Rôle of Salts in the Preservation of Life. X. Experimental Study of the Influence of Environment on Animals.

LOEB, J.: The Organism as a Whole. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. New York, 1916.

Selection from contents: I. Introductory Remarks. II. The Specific Difference between Living and Dead Matter and the Question of the Origin of Life. III. The Chemical Basis of Genus and Species: 1. The Incompatibility of Species not Closely Related. 2. The Chemical basis of Genus and Species and of Species Specificity. IV. Specificity in Fertilization. V. Artificial Parthenogenesis. VI. Determinism in the Formation of an Organism from an Egg. VII. Regeneration. VIII. Determination of Sex, Secondary Sexual Characters and Sexual Instincts: 1. The Cytological Basis of Sex Determination. 2. The Physiological Basis of Sex Determination. IX. Mendelian Heredity and its Mechanism. X. Animal Instincts and Tropisms. XI. The Influence of Environment. XII. Adaptation to Environment. XIII. Evolution. XIV. Death and Dissolution of the Organism.

LOEB, J.: “Forced Movements, Tropisms, and Animal Conduct.” J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1918.

Selection from contents: I. Introduction. II. The Symmetry Relations of the Animal Body as the Starting Point for the Theory of Animal Conduct. III. Forced Movements. IV. Galvanotropism. V. Heliotropism. The Influence of One Source of Light. 1. General Facts. 2. Direct Proof of the Muscle Tension Theory of Heliotropism in Motile Animals. 3. Heliotropism of Unicellular Organisms. 4. Heliotropism of Sessile Animals. VI. An Artificial Heliotropic Machine. VII. Asymmetrical Animals. VIII. Two Sources of Light of Different Intensity. IX. The Validity of the Bunsen-Roscoe Law for the Heliotropic Reactions of Animals and Plants. X. The Effect of Rapid Changes in Intensity of Light. XI. The Relative Heliotropic Efficiency of Light of Different Wave Lengths. XII. Change in the Sense of Heliotropism. XIII. Geotropism. XIV. Forced Movements Caused by Moving Retina Images: Rheotropism: Anemotropism. XV. Stereotropism. XVI. Chemotropism. XVII. Thermotropism. XVIII. Instincts. XIX. Memory Images and Tropisms.

A list of _554 books on this subject_, in which any reader interested will find a vast storehouse of exact knowledge in this line. Author.

CONKLIN, EDWIN GRANT: “Heredity and Environment in the Development of Men.” Princeton University Press, 1915.

Selection from contents: I. Facts and Factors of Development. Introduction. A. Phenomena of Development. B. Factors of Development. II. Cellular Basis of Heredity and Development. A. Introductory. B. The Germ Cells. C. The Mechanism of Heredity. D. The Mechanism of Development. III. Phenomena of Inheritance. A. Observations on Inheritance. B. Statistical Study of Inheritance. C. Experimental Study of Inheritance. IV. Influence of Environment. A. Relative Importance of Heredity and Environment. B. Experimental Modifications of Development. C. Functional Activity as a Factor of Development. D. Inheritance or Non-inheritance of Acquired Characters. E. Applications to Human Development: Euthenics. V. Control of Heredity: Eugenics. A. Domesticated Animals and Cultivated Plants. B. Control of Human Heredity. VI. Genetics and Ethics.

Glossary of books on this subject; for those who desire to be more fully acquainted with the subjects of heredity and development. Author.

MORGAN, T. H., “Physical Basis of Heredity.”

EAST, E. M., and JONES, D. F., “Inbreeding and Outbreeding,” etc.

PARKER, G. H., “The Elementary Nervous System.”

HARVEY, E. N., “The Nature of Animal Light.”

Appendix III. Engineering And Time-Binding

The Arts of Engineering, by their very nature, are derived from the work of dead men and destined to serve not only the present but the future. They are freer than any other human activity from the errors of intermixing dimensions and from the fallacy of belief in individualistic accomplishment and pride. The simple steel structure of a bridge, familiar to us in every day life, is a clear reminder to us all of the arts of Hephæstus and the bound-up knowledge of countless generations of smiths and mechanics, metallurgists and chemists, mathematicians and builders, teachers and engineers who toiled for many thousands of years to make possible the riveted steel beams which are the elements of modern structure. These structures do not collapse unless the natural laws for their construction are transgressed; which seldom happens—for no one is entrusted with the work unless he has bound up in his knowledge the accumulated experience of the past; yet the transgressors of these natural laws are punished with all the severity of the common law. When a bridge is opened and tested, the written laws in some countries and the unwritten in others, and the pride and the sense of responsibility of the designer and builder of the bridge demand that he, the creator of the bridge, be the first to enter it and the last to leave it; and should the bridge collapse, he has to take the immediate consequences of his neglect of the time-binding laws.

Rarely are the affairs of engineering done with the entirely selfish motive of merely acquiring immediate selfish gain, for even when this could be traced—this unworthy thought disappears in the halo of the glory of the accomplishment. Mr. Eiffel did not erect his tower to haunt Paris with the sight of a steel skeleton towering over the city of daring thoughts. His tower stands to-day as a mechanical proof of mathematical formulas proving the possibility of erecting tall, self-supporting structures and thereby serving future humanity. The Time-binding capacity of humans creates and formulates new values for the service of mankind. Again, no student of the Arts of Engineering could ever forget himself to the point of claiming his accomplishments, no matter how marvelous, all to himself. No wondrous discovery of modern electricity, not even the talking from one hemisphere to another, is rightly the accomplishment of any one man, for the origin of the discovery can be traced at least as far back as the days of that barefooted shepherd boy Magnus, who first observed the phenomena of magnetism.

In an attempt to trace and evaluate the time-binding faculties manifested in the Arts of Engineering, one is at once astonished, and bewildered, at the confusion and contradictions unrealized in the mass of evidence, and how pathetic and deplorable is the sight of hundreds of thousands of workers in the field of engineering toil and creation who unconsciously submit to the degradation, in silent consent, of seeing their marvelous collective achievements chained to space-binding aims.

Upon the completion of this book I was astonished that there are such a small number of engineers who have the intuitive feeling of the greatness of the assets at their command and of the gravity of their liabilities concerning affairs of humanity. I was eager to have my book read and analysed by a few leading engineers. The late H. L. Gantt being no more with us, I then turned to Walter N. Polakov, Doctor of Engineering; Industrial Counselor; Chairman of Committee on Service and Information, Fuels Section, A.S.M.E., and Robert B. Wolf, Vice-President of A.S.M.E. In them I found, to the full, a very sympathetic understanding and my esteem grew as I became more intimately acquainted with the character of their work and their accomplishments. Both have done a most remarkable work in their respective lines. It will not be an exaggeration to say that their work, together with the work of the late H. L. Gantt and Charles P. Steinmetz, may be considered as the first—to my knowledge—corner-stones of the science and art of Human Engineering, and form the first few volumes and writings for the New Library of the Manhood of Humanity. These books and pamphlets are based on facts analysed scientifically, marking the parting of the way of engineering thought from the past subjection to speculative fetishes.

Of all the pure and applied sciences, engineering alone has the distinction of being the first to have the _correct_ insight into the human problem. The task of engineers was to convert knowledge—brain work—“bound-up time”—into daily bread by means of conserving time and effort. This concept is naught else but the working out of the imperfect formulation of the time-binding principle. It was inevitable, therefore, that some engineers had already beaten the path in the right direction. How straight and how far this sense of dimensionality has led some of them in their practical work may be seen from the work of Walter N. Polakov, in his _Mastering Power Production_, Engineering Magazine, N. Y., 1921.

“It was not my intention to compile a text book on power engineering; it was rather my care to avoid the treatment of any technical subject which could be found elsewhere in engineering literature; but I could not avoid trespassing in the adjoining fields of psychology and economics, for without familiarity with these sciences the mastery of power production is a futile attempt.

“I do not hold that the principles upon which the method is laid out are subject to choice or opinions, for they are based on facts. Yet work of this character cannot be complete, or examples may be illy chosen, for it deals with living and constantly reshaping relations and applies to things in process of development.

“If this work and its underlying idea will facilitate the solving of some of the problems now in the course of rapid evolution in our industrial relations, I shall feel that my own and my readers’ time have not been altogether lost.”

Indeed the readers’ time will not be lost. This book gives an engineering, scientific—in the meantime practical—analysis of all human problems. It is a deep and practical treatise on all great questions concerning modern industrialism and so-called economic problems and is a foundation for a new scientific industrial philosophy. Another very clear outline of the _Principles of Industrial Philosophy_ was given by Mr. Polakov in his paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, December 7-10, 1920. Anyone who has anything to do with industrial or economic problems cannot afford to overlook the important and fundamental work in this book.

It is obvious that a scientific knowledge of facts, is of the greatest importance for anyone who cares to approach any problem in a serious way. Statistics which are up-to-date are therefore of primary importance. I had the privilege of reading the manuscript of _Quo Vadis America_, the forthcoming book of Mr. Polakov, where a most valuable statistical picture of facts in modern America is given and the astonishing conclusions which are to be drawn therefrom. I can only regret that in Europe we have not such a knowledge written down concerning European conditions. If more such books had been written and _read_ by the public, many crises and catastrophes would have been avoided.

The outstanding contribution of Mr. Robert B. Wolf to engineering was made in his study of physiology, biology, psychology and philosophy as applied to engineering.

“If anyone wishes to inquire into the forces which have led up to the individual development of mankind, he will find himself at once plunged into the realm of psychology and mental philosophy. I can heartily recommend such a course as immensely profitable and of practical value.

“The five important facts, however, that have to do with the subject in hand are:

“_1st._ That the human body is such a wonderful organization because it is the product of the forces of creation, acting through millions of years of evolution.

“_2nd._ That its capacity for progress depends upon the maintenance of the unity resulting from this creative evolution and upon a conscious recognition of this unity.

“_3d._ That this unity would not have been possible without the development of the nervous system.

“_4th._ That the conscious intelligent progress made by mankind could not have reached its present level until in the process of evolution a mechanism had been built up in the nervous system itself capable of recording the various impressions which the senses are constantly receiving.

“_5th._ That the recording of past events, with the power of consciously recalling them for the solution of problems immediately confronting it, is absolutely essential to its development.

“Now, what I want to point out is that inasmuch as man’s progress depends upon the perfect co-ordination of his forces to produce unity of action, we have no right to expect an industrial organization to make progress which it must do as a unit without the establishment of a conscious co-ordinating mechanism similar to the nervous system in the human body.” _Individuality in Industry._ By Robert B. Wolf.

Doctor Charles P. Steinmetz has given in his _America and the New Epoch_ a most correct engineering picture of the political situation in the world, with a fine characterization of the psychological peculiarities of the different races. Although this book was written in 1916, that is, before the end of the World War, it will be of permanent value; because of its deep psychological analysis of the peoples and their institutions which ultimately shape the development of any nation and which do not change with victory or defeat.

“My tribute to the memory of Gantt will be, not only the homage of a friend and admirer, but the proof that his philosophy is scientifically true. A rigorous proof is necessary, because the word ‘service’ belongs to that category of words, the meaning of which can be completely reversed by the verb, be it ‘give’ or ‘take.’ Gantt took ‘rendering service’ as an axiom; my observation, shared with many others, is that our civilization had quite another axiom, ‘we preach give, we practice take.’ The problem which interested me, was how to find a way out of this contradiction that would be irrefutable. If one of them is true and natural law for humans, then the other is not; if our words are true, then our deeds are not true, or if our deeds are true then the words are camouflage. I found the solution, by applying mathematically rigorous thinking. Mathematics, with its exact concept of dimensions, gave me the method. The method we use in studying phenomena is analysis, or speaking mathematically, differentiation. I soon found, that the methods of differentiation are mostly correct, but our synthesis, or process of integration made by the use of metaphysics was faulty. The differentiation correctly lowered the dimensions, but our faulty integration did not restore the original dimensions. The investigation had to be made from the beginning, by defining the phenomena of life, in a specific way, which would not permit of any blunders in dimensions.

“I defined the classes of life by emphasizing their incontestable, dimensional characteristics: plants are ‘Chemistry-binding,’ animals are ‘Space-binding,’ Humans are ‘Time-binding’ classes of life.

“These definitions have the peculiarity that they make it obvious, that: 1. The classes of life have different dimensions, and that the intermixing of dimensions, as in mathematics it makes a correct solution impossible, so in life, the results of such elementary mistakes, produce tragic consequences.

“2. The old formula on which our civilization is built, HUMAN equal ANIMAL plus or multiplied by SPARK OF DIVINITY is basically and elementarily wrong, and is mathematical nonsense, which is identical to such an absurdity as _x_ square inches equal _y_ linear inches plus or multiplied by _z_ cubic inches.

“3. A basically wrong formula on which our civilization rests, is the cause of all the periodical collapses, wars and revolutions.

“4. The old system was built on animal ‘space-binding’ standards, and human ‘time-binding’ impulses were, all the time, in rebellion.

“5. As the theory of gravitation and the calculus made engineers and mathematicians masters of inanimate nature, so these tangible and incontestable definitions give them a positive base which will enable them to approach and solve human living problems, by establishing the mathematical fact that man is man, not an animal.

“6. All of those who are blinded by traditions and refuse to investigate, or to know these mathematical truths, are a danger to humanity in directly helping to obscure issues, and in helping to maintain the faulty structure which, as in the past, is bound to collapse again and again in the future.

“7. The duty of mathematically thinking people is to throw such light on this problem as will stop the stupid, or willfully destructive, and show whether they are working for, or against, mankind.

“8. For the ‘time-binding’ class of life, it is obvious then that in this dimension, ‘time-binding’ is the natural law, and, if understood and analysed, it is the highest human aim.

“9. Such ‘natural laws’ as ‘survival of the fittest’ for animals, which is the ‘survival of the fittest in space,’ result in fight, or the survival of the strongest; whereas such a law to be a NATURAL LAW FOR HUMANS, must be in the human dimension which obviously would be the ‘Survival of the fittest in TIME,’ resulting in the survival of the best.

“10. All known facts must be brought to the light, to be summed up, and correlated by mathematicians and engineers with the strictest attention to dimensionality.

“11. All of our ideas have to be revised; the animal ‘space-binding’ standards must be rejected as dangerous and destructive, must be replaced by ‘time-binding’ standards, which will correspond to the natural impulses and NATURAL LAWS for humans.

“12. The minds of mathematicians and engineers are by education the first to see the far reaching importance of the facts disclosed by these definitions, and just this realization will bring about the readjustment of values in life to a human dimension, wherein pending revolutions and wars could be turned into evolution, destruction into construction, discord into accord of a common aim.

“We are the masters of our own destinies, the responsibility is ours to correct the mistakes of our ancestors and to establish a scientific philosophy, scientifically true laws, scientifically true ethics, and a scientific sociology, which will form one unified science of man and his function in the universe, a science which I propose to call ‘Human Engineering.’ Gantt’s methods would be the first practical application toward this end.

“Gantt’s concept of rendering service is scientifically true because it is ‘time-binding,’ and therefore true for the human class of life and in human dimension. This is why Gantt’s concepts have counted for so much and will survive ‘IN TIME.’ ” Discussion by Alfred Korzybski of Mr. W. N. Polakov’s paper “Principles of Industrial Philosophy” presented at the Annual Meeting of The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, New York, December 7-10, 1920.

LITERATURE

GANTT, H. L.:

“Work, Wages, and Profits.” The Engineering Magazine Co., 1913. N. Y.

“Industrial Leadership.” Yale University Press. 1916.

“Organizing for Work.” Harcourt, Brace & Howe, 1919. N. Y.

Selection from Contents: The Engineer as the Industrial Leader. Economics and Democracy. Democracy in Production. Democracy in the Shop. Democracy in Management. “The Religion of Democracy.”

POLAKOV, WALTER N.:

“Mastering Power Production.” The Engineering Magazine Co. 1921. N. Y.

Selection from Contents: The Descent of the Principle of Production for Use. The Power Industry as an Economic Factor. Mastering Labor Problems. (Conditions) Autonomous Co-operation. Aims of Labor. Right to be Lazy and the Right to a Job. Qualification of Men. The Working Day. Fatigue. UNIVERSAL LABOR (_Corresponding exactly to Time-binding—Author_). The Position of an Engineer. Mastering Labor Problems. Compensation. The Social Aspect. The Economic Aspect. The Basis of Wages. Incentive Payments. Profit Sharing. Premium Places. Rewarding Individual Efforts. Two-rate wages. Energy as a Commodity.

“Principles of Industrial Philosophy.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the A. S. of M. E., December, 1920.

“Equipment and Machinery.” Y. M. C. A. Association Press. 1921. N. Y.

“Organization and Management.” Y. M. C. A. Association Press. 1921. N. Y.

“Quo Vadis America?” In preparation.

STEINMETZ, CHARLES P.:

“America and the New Epoch.” Harper & Brothers. 1916. N. Y.

Selection from Contents: The Individualistic Era: From Competition to Co-operation. England in the Individualistic Era. Germany in the Individualistic Era. The Other European Nations in the Individualistic Era. America in the Individualistic Era. Evolution: Industrial Government.

“Incentive and Initiative.” Y. M. C. A. Association Press. 1921. N. Y.

WOLF, ROBERT B.: Pamphlets.

“Individuality in Industry.” Bulletin of the Society to promote the Science of Management. Vol. I. No. 4. August, 1915.

“The Creative Workman.” Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry. 1918. N. Y.

“Non-Financial Incentives.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the A. S. of M. E. December, 1918. N. Y.

“Modern Industry and the Individual.” A. W. Shaw & Co. 1919. N. Y.

“Securing the Initiative of the Workman.” American Economic Association. 1919. N. Y.

“Creative Spirit in Industry.” Y. M. C. A. Association Press. 1921. N. Y.

MISCELLANEOUS LIST OF BOOKS

VON BERNHARDI, General F.: “Germany and the Next War.” E. Arnold, London. 1912.

BRANDEIS, LOUIS: “Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use it.” F. A. Stokes, N. Y. 1914.

THOMAS FARROW and WALTER CROTCH: “The Coming Trade War.” Chapman & Hall, London. 1916.

HUEFFER, FORD MADDOX: “When Blood is Their Argument.” Hodder & Stoughton. 1915. N. Y.

HAUSER, HENRY: “Germany’s Commercial Grip on the World, Her Business Methods Explained.” E. Nash Co., London. 1917.

LAUGHLIN, J. L.: “Credit of the Nations.” Scribner’s Sons, N. Y. 1918.

MAETZU, RAMIRO DE: “Authority, Liberty and Function in the Light of War.” Geo. Allen and Unwin.

DELAISI, FRANCIS: French Opinion, “The Inevitable War.” Small, Maynard & Co., Boston. 1915.

NEILSON, FRANCIS: English Opinion, “How Diplomats Make War.” B. W. Huebsch. 1916.

BY A GERMAN (German Opinion). “J’Accuse!” Hodder & Stoughton, London. 1915.

FOOTNOTES

1 To digress a bit, it may be interesting to add, that population and the need of people increase in a geometrical progression; and also that the growth of individuals is limited by the fact, that they have to absorb their food through surfaces which as growth goes on increase only as _squares_, while the bodies to be fed, being volumes, increase in size as _cubes_ increase, as the cubes of the same base grow faster than the squares,

22 = 4, 23 = 8, 32 = 9, 33 = 27, and so on,

it is obvious, that in the infancy of an organism only a part of the food goes to maintain life, the larger part goes for growth; when the organism becomes larger, the absorbing surfaces, growing proportionally to the square, the food is spent to build the mass of the volume of the body and is spent proportionally to the cube. Suppose our organism has grown to a size twice as large, its absorbing capacity has become four times larger, its volume eight times larger. In case of 3 times, the difference will be 9 and 27. It is obvious that at some point, all the absorbed food will be used to maintain life and none will be left for growth, and this last process will stop. This is another example which explains how the theory of dimensions is vitally important in life and shows why it is absolutely essential to take account of dimensions in the study of life problems.

_ 2 An Outline of the History of the Western European Mind_, by James Harvey Robinson. The New School for Social Research, New York, 1919. This little volume gives condensed statements, as in a nutshell, of the historical developments of the human mind and contains a long list of the most substantial modern books on historical questions. All the further historical quotations will be taken from this exceptionally valuable little book, and for convenience they will simply be marked by his initials—J. H. R.

3 (J. H. R.) “Late appearance of a definite theory of progress. Excessive conservatism of primitive peoples. The Greeks speculated on the origin of things, but they did not have a conception of the possibility of indefinite progress ... Progress of man from the earliest time till the opening of the 17th century almost altogether unconscious.... Fundamental weakness of Hellenic learning. It was an imposing collection of speculation, opinions, and guesses, which, however brilliant and ingenious they might be, were based on a very slight body of exact knowledge, and failed to recognize the fundamental necessity of painful scientific research, aided by apparatus. There was no steady accumulation of knowledge to offset the growing emotional distrust of reason.... Unfulfilled promise of Hellenistic science. Influence of slavery in checking the development of science.... The deficiencies of Medieval culture. All the weaknesses of the Hellenic reasoning, combined with those of the Christian Fathers, underlay what appeared to be a most logically elaborated and definitive system of thought. Defects of the university education.... Little history of Natural science, in our sense of the word, taught in the universities.... Copernicus, ‘De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium.’ Libri VI, 1543.... Copernicus’ own introduction acknowledges his debt to ancient philosophers. Still believed in fixed Starry Sphere. His discovery had little immediate effect on prevailing notions. Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) made it his chief business to think out and set forth in Latin and Italian the implications of the discovery of Copernicus.... Bruno burned by the Inquisition at Rome.... Keppler (1571-1630) and his discovery of the elliptical orbits of the planets. Galileo (1564-1642). His telescope speedily improved so as to magnify 32 diameters. His attitude toward the Copernican theory, which was condemned by Roman Inquisition 1616.... Galileo’s chief discoveries were in physics and mechanics. Isaac Newton (1642-1727) proved that the laws of falling bodies apply to the heavens. This made a deep impression and finally the newer conceptions of the universe began to be popularized.... Lord Bacon (1561-1626), the ‘Buccinator’ of experimental and applied modern science.... His lively appreciation of the existing obstacles to scientific advance; the idols of the tribe, cave, market-place, and theatre.... Necessity of escaping from the scholastic methods of ‘tumbling up and down in our reasons and conceits,’ and studying the world about us. Undreamed of achievements possible if only the right method of research be followed ... the distrust of ancient authority.... Descartes (1596-1650), ... he proposed to reach the truth through analysis and clear ideas, on the assumption that God will not deceive.... His fundamental interest in mathematics.... His claim to originality and his rejection of all authority.... Obstacles to scientific advance; the universities still dominated by Aristotle; the theological faculties; the censorship of the press exercised by both church and state; ...”

4 (J. H. R.) “Phases of religious complex. ‘Religious,’ a vague and comprehensive term applied to: (1) certain classes of emotions (awe, dependence, self-distrust, aspirations, etc.); (2) Conduct, which may take the form of distinctive religious acts (ceremonies, sacrifices, prayers, ‘good works’) or the observance of what in primitive conditions are recognized as ‘taboos’; (3) Priestly, or ecclesiastical organizations; (4) Beliefs about supernatural beings and man’s relations to them: the latter may take the form of revelation and be reduced to creeds and become the subject of elaborate theological speculations.

“Association of religion with the supernatural; religion has always had for its primary object the attainment of a satisfactory adjustment to, or a successful control over, the supernatural.... The cultural mind viewed as the product of a long and hazardous process of accumulation.... Spontaneous generation of superstitions. Prevalence of symbolism, mana, animism, magic, fetishism, totemism; the taboo (cf. our modern idea of ‘principle’), the sacred, clean and unclean; ‘dream logic’—spontaneous rationalizing or ‘jumping at conclusions’;... The 16th book of the Theodosian Code contains edicts relating to the Church issued by the Roman Emperors during the 4th and 5th centuries. They make it a crime to disagree with the Church; they provide harsh penalties for heretical teaching and writing, and grant privileges to the orthodox clergy (exemptions from regular taxes and benefit of the clergy).... Christianity becomes a monopoly defended by the state.... Psychological power and attraction in the elaborate symbolism and ritual of the church.... Allegory put an end to all literary criticism.... Flourishing of the miraculous; any unusual or startling occurrence attributed to the intervention of either God or the Devil.... Older conceptions of disease as caused by the Devil.... Our legal expression ‘act of God’ confined to unforseeable natural disasters. How with a growing appreciation for natural law and a chastened taste in wonders, miracles have tended to become a source of intellectual distress and bewilderment.... Protestants shared with Roman Catholics the horror of ‘rationalists’ and ‘free-thinkers.’ The leaders of both parties agreed in hampering and denouncing scientific discoveries.... Witchcraft in its modern form emerges clearly in the 15th century.... Great prevalence of witchcraft during the 16th and 17th centuries in Protestant and Catholic countries, alike.... Trial of those suspected of sorcery. Tortures to force confession. The witches’ mark. Penalties, burning alive, strangling, hanging. Tens of thousands of innocent persons perished.... Those who tried to discredit witchcraft denounced as ‘Sadducees’ and atheists.... The psychology of intolerance. Fear, vested interests, the comfortable nature of the traditional and the habitual. The painful appropriation of new ideas.... The intolerance of the Catholic Church: a natural result of its state-like organization and claims.... Its doctrine of exclusive salvation and its conception of heresy both sanctioned by the state. Doubt and error regarded as sinful.... Beginnings of censorship of the press after the invention of printing, licensing of ecclesiastical and civil authorities.... Protestants of 16th century accept the theory of intolerance.”

5 (J. H. R.) “The Socio-psychological foundations of conservatism: Primitive natural reverence for the familiar and habitual greatly reenforced by religion and law. Natural conservatism of all professions. Those who suffer most from existing institutions commonly, helplessly accept the situation as inevitable. Position of the conservative; he urges the impossibility of altering ‘human nature’ and warns against the disasters of revolution. Conservatism in the light of history: History would seem to discredit conservatism completely as a working principle in view of the past achievements of mankind in the recent past and the possibilities which opened before us.... Futility of the appeal of the conservative to human nature as an obstacle to progress.... Culture can not be transmitted hereditarily but can be accumulated through education and modified indefinitely.”

6 (J. H. R.) “Formulation and establishment of the evolutionary hypothesis. Discovery of the great age of the earth; ... gradual development of the evolutionary theory.... Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species,’ 1859. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903).... Haeckel (1834-1919) and others clarify, defend and popularize the new doctrine. Subsequent development of the evolutionary doctrine by Mendel, Weisman, DeVries and others. Weakening of the special creation theory by other evidence such as archeology and biblical criticism. The significance of the doctrine for intellectual history. Character of the opposition to the evolutionary theory. Popular confusion of ‘Darwinism’ with ‘evolution.’ Revolutionary effects of the new point of view. Does away with conception of fixed species (Platonic ideas) that had previously dominated speculation. The genetic method adopted in all the organic sciences, including the newer social sciences. Problem of adjusting history to the discoveries of the past 50 years. Bearing of evolution on the theory of progress. Organic evolution and social evolution.”

7 (J. H. R.) “The Deists and philosophers destroy the older theological anthropology and reassert the dignity of man; the growth of criticism and liberalism has made the analysis of social institutions somewhat less dangerous; the general growth of knowledge has reacted in a stimulating way upon the sciences of society; the great increase in the number, complexity and intensity of social problems has proved a strong incentive to social science; The Darwinian hypothesis has rendered preposterous any conception of a wholly static social system. However, the modern social sciences in our capitalistic order meet much the same resistance from the ‘vested interests’ that theological radicalism encountered in the Middle Ages, and social science has in no way approached the objectivity and progressiveness of present day natural science.... Grave effects of vested rights in hampering experiments and readjustments.... Obstacles to readjustment presented by consecrated traditions.... Influence of modern commercialism in the inordinate development of organization and regimentation in our present educational system. Psychological disadvantages of our conventional examination system. As yet our education has not been brought into close relation with prevailing conditions of our ever increasing knowledge.... Excellent aims and small achievements of sociology in practical results. (_Because of absolute lack of any scientific base._ Author.) General nature of the problem of social reform: psychological problems involved in social reform movements: violent resistance of the group to that criticism of the existing institutions, which must precede any effective social reform....”

8 (J. H. R.) “During the past two centuries the application of the scientific discoveries to daily life has revolutionized our methods of supplying our economic needs, our social and intellectual life, and the whole range of the relations of mankind. The impulse of invention, iron, coal, and steam essential to the development of machinery on a large scale; machinery has in turn begotten the modern factory with its vast organized labor, the modern city and finally, our well nigh perfect means of rapid human inter-communication. The tremendous increase in the production of wealth and the growing interdependence of nations has opened up a vast range of speculation in regard to the betterment of mankind to the abolition or reduction of poverty, ignorance, disease, and war.... Man advances from a tool-using to a machine-controlling animal. The rise of the factory system; the concentration and localization of industry; increased division of labor and specialization of industrial processes. The great increase in the volume of capital and in the extent of investments; the separation of capital and labor and the growth of impersonal economic relationship. Problems of capital and labor; unemployment and the labor of women and children; labor organizations. Increased productivity and the expansion of commerce. Industrial processes become dynamic and everchanging—a complete reversal of the old stability, repetition and isolation.”

9 It may be contended by some that animals have been making “progress” or some may say that animals also “bind-time.” This use of words would again become mere verbalism, a mere talking about words—mere speculation having nothing to do with _facts_ or with correct thinking, in which there is no intermixing of dimensions. The peculiar faculty belonging exclusively to humans which I designate as “time-binding” I have clearly defined as an _exponential function_ of _time_ in the following chapter. If people are pleased to talk about the “progress” of animals, they can hardly fail to see clearly that it differs both in function and in type or dimension from what is rightly meant by human progress; human time-binding capacity lies in an entirely different dimension from that of animals. So, if any persons wish to talk of animal “progress” or animal “time-binding,” they should invent a suitable word for it to save them from the blunder of confusing types or mixing dimensions.

This mathematical discrimination between classes, types, dimensions is of the utmost importance in the natural sciences, because of the transmutation of species. To adjust the Darwin theory to dimensionality is a somewhat more difficult problem; it involves the concept of the “continuum”; but with the modern theory of de Vries, these things are self evident. If animals really progress, which is doubtful because they are an older form of life than humans and they have not shown any noticeable progress to the knowledge of man, their progress is so small in comparison with man’s that it may be said, in mathematical terms, to be _negligible_ as an infinitesimal of higher order.

10 It must be remembered here that our world is, first of all, a dynamic conglomeration of matter and energy, which to-day, as well as in the first period of primitive organic life, took and takes different known and unknown forms. One of these forms of energy is the chemical energy, with its tendency to combinations and exchanges. Different elements act in different ways. The history of the earth and its life is simply the history of different chemical periods, with different transformations of energy. A strange fact is to be noticed about nitrogen. Nitrogen chemically has an exceptional inertness toward most other substances, but once it is a component part of a substance, almost all of these combinations are a very powerful source of energy, and all of them have a very strong effect upon organic life. Nitric acid acts through oxidation, the substances are burned up by the oxygen given off from the acid. Nitric acid occurs in nature, in a combination called nitrates. From the soil the nitrates pass into the plant. Nitrite of amyl acts upon our organs in a most violent and spasmodic way. Nitrous oxide is the so-called laughing gas.

Alkaloids are compounds of a vegetable origin, generally of complex composition and capable of producing marked effects upon animals. They all contain nitrogen. Explosives which are a chemical means of storing tremendous amounts of energy, are mostly of some nitrogenous compound. Albumen is an organic compound of great importance in life, which, besides being the characteristic ingredient in the white of an egg, abounds in the serum of the blood and forms an important part of the muscles and brain. Albuminoids play the most vital rôle in plant life and are an extensive class of organic bodies found in plants and animals, as they are found to form the chief constituents of blood, nerves. All albuminoids found in animals are produced by the processes fulfilled in plants. Their exact constitution is not known; analysis shows that they contain approximately: Carbon 50-55%, Hydrogen 6.9-7.5%, Nitrogen 15-19%, Oxygen 20-24%, Sulphur 0.3-2.0%. Venous blood contains in 100 volumes: Nitrogen, 13; Carbonic Acid, 71.6; Oxygen, 15.3. Arterial blood: Nitrogen, 14.5; Carbonic Acid, 62.3; Oxygen, 23.2.

“Nitrogenous compounds in general, are extremely prone to decomposition; their decomposition often involving a sudden and great evolution of force. We see that substances classed as ferments ... are all nitrogenous ... and we see that even in organisms and parts of organisms where the activities are least, such changes as do take place are initiated by a substance containing nitrogen.... We see that organic matter is so constituted that small incidental actions are capable of initiating great reaction and liberating large quantities of power.... The seed of a plant contains nitrogenous substances in a far higher ratio than the rest of the plant; and the seed differs from the rest of the plant in its ability to initiate ... extensive vital changes—the changes constituting germination. Similarly in the bodies of animals ... in every living vegetal cell there is a certain part that contains nitrogen. This part initiates these changes which constitute the development of the cell.... It is a curious and significant fact that, in technology, we not only utilize the same principle of initiating extensive changes among comparatively stable compounds by the help of compounds much less stable, but we employ for the purpose compounds of the same general class. Our modern method of firing a gun is to place in close proximity with the gunpowder which we choose to decompose or explode, a small portion of fulminating powder, which is decomposed or exploded with extreme facility, and which on decomposing, communicates the consequent molecular disturbances to the less easily decomposed gunpowder. When we ask what this fulminating powder is composed of, we find that it is a nitrogenous salt.”—Spencer.

11 Of course, the geometric progression does not represent _precisely_ the law of human progression; it is here employed because it is familiar and serves, better perhaps than any other simple mathematical means, to show _roughly_ how human progress goes on. The essential elements of a progression are the first term _P_ and the ratio _R_ and the number of the terms _T_; in the human progression _PR__1__, PR__2__, PR__3__, ... PR__T__, P_ is the starting status of the first generation, _R_ is the peculiar capacity of humans to bind time and is a _free gift_ and _law_ of _nature_, which it would be folly not to recognize and accept as such, _T_ is time, or number of generations. It is obvious that the magnitude, _PR__T_, is entirely dependent on the magnitudes of _PR_, and _T_. The existence of _R_ and _T_ is independent of humans, _R_ being a law of nature, _T_ a gift of nature, _P_ the starting status of the initial generation. With _P = 0_ or _R = 0_ THERE WOULD BE NO PROGRESS or progression at all; each term in the case of human progression is mainly dependent upon the time and the work done by the dead. The existence of _R_ and _T_ is entirely beyond human control. Humans can control only the MAGNITUDE of those elements by education. Here comes the tremendous responsibility of education. It is not necessary to use much imagination to see that if humanity had always been rightly educated, science would have long ago discovered the natural forces and laws essential to human welfare, and human misery would to-day be relatively small.

12 See Appendix III.