Manhood of Humanity Part 8

I have already repeatedly pointed out that the progress of technology proceeds according to a law like that of a rapidly increasing geometrical progression, and I have stressed the danger of inattention to any phenomena, force or movement that conforms to such a law. We have only to recollect the story of the simple but very greedy farmer who was very happy to make a contract with a laborer for a month's work, paying him only one cent the first day, twice as much the second, twice for the third, and so on to the end. Behold! The bill for the month ran into millions of dollars and the farmer was ruined. Such is the deadly secret of the geometrical progression. Violent readjustments await any society whose ethics, jurisprudence and the like do not keep pace with the developments of engineering.

Engineers are the wizards who, using the results of scientific research, can subjugate or release the concealed powers of nature. The supreme factor is the use of the mind-the exponential function of time-the time-binding energy of man. From that we have to take our start because that is the source of human power.

The German philosophy, as a whole, has its definite place in the history of philosophy; and the first thing to consider are those philosophic writers who directly and indirectly have contributed to the building up of German power. Hegel greatly affected the building up of the German mind-strange as it may seem; but Hegel was greatly under the influence of the work of Fichte, and Fichte in turn under that of Spinoza. All of them were, in a way, mathematicians in their methods and philosophy, as much as they could be in their time. I said "strange," because it is significant that the mathematical part of their philosophy was just the part which built up the German power. But if we look into it, it is not strange.

It had to be so, because mathematical and mechanical methods are the only ones by which power can be understood and built. Hegel in 1805 lectured on history of philosophy, pure mathematics and natural law. It would be hard to find a better combination for a philosophy of power. That is precisely what this philosophy was. It influenced not only German philosophy but even German theology, and through these channels it sank deep into the national consciousness. It affected every phase of life. An immense cult of disciples arose. Each one added something to that philosophy of power.

One of the most brilliant representatives of this movement is Professor Oswald, who in his _Monist Sermons_ gave the famous advice: "Do not waste energy but give it value." The German understanding of the great value of technology directly applied that principle to their philosophy, law, ethics, politics, and so on.

With increase of population, the problem of the State becomes more and more pressing. There are many theories about the state. For the purpose of the moment it is important to realize that a state is the governing center of an acc.u.mulation of human beings-of time-binding powers-increasing exponential functions of time. These powers, though the same in kind, differ in degree and in respect of individuality. If they are to be united so as to const.i.tute a whole, they must be given a common aim; they must, so to speak, be reduced to a common base; if they be respectively _X__m_, _Y__n_, _Z__p_, and so on, we can not unite them and compute the whole by adding the exponents; but if we give them a common base-a common aim or purpose-then we can readily represent the magnitudes of the whole const.i.tuted by them; if we take _X_ to be their common aim or base, then, if _Y_ = _aX_, _Z_ = _bX_, and so on, we shall have:

_X__m_ _Y__n_ _Z__p_ ... = _X__m_ _a__n_ _X__n_ _b__p_ _X__p_ ... = (_a__n_ _b__p_ ...)_X__m+n+p_ ...

The last expression, where the parenthetical coefficient is the product of individualities, serves to represent the united powers of all in terms of _X_, the common base, purpose or aim.

Let us look at the matter in another way. One mechanical "horse-power" is less than the power of one living horse. One living horse can do more work than one mechanical horse-power, but in using more than one living horse at one time we get less work than by using the same number of mechanical horse-powers; the reason is very obvious. The mechanical horse-powers are the same in kind, equal, and constant, but living horses differ in character, they are not equal, and each one is a variable. Hence mechanical horse-powers can be added or multiplied arithmetically, but the powers of living horses can not, except very roughly; the living horses of a team interfere with each other; they do not pull together, as we say, and energy is lost.

The German mathematical philosophy or theory of the state did not express itself in just this way, but the foregoing gives a clue to it. Germany united the powers of living men and women and children; it gave them a common base; it gave them one common "social" mood and aim; they all became consolidated in service of that which is called the State; they studied and taught for the State; they worked, lived and died for the State: the State was their idol, King and G.o.d.

Such was the aim of German philosophy, theology, law and science. The establishment of ONE AIM for all was the decisive factor. It is obvious that if we want to inspire 60 Millions of individuals with one aim, this aim can not be private or personal. It must be a higher aim, collective, general, impersonal, in some way uniting and including all personal aims.

I shall call it simply a _collective_ aim. But collective aims may differ profoundly in kind; out of personal or egoistic aims there grows a series of collective aims, increasing in generality, such as: (1) Family aims; (2) a.s.sociation, congregation, club aims; (3) cla.s.s or professional aims; (4) national or race aims; and finally (5) HUMAN AIMS-the natural aims for the time-binding cla.s.s of life. The fatal error of German political philosophy was an error of aim-her aim was too low-too narrow-the welfare of a state instead of the welfare of Humanity.

In the case of Germany, the national aim was equivalent to the state aim.

German philosophy made the "state" equivalent to the "good" and equivalent to "power." Of course such philosophy influenced the whole national life in every detail; in consequence Germany proclaimed herself the first nation of the world, and this soon evolved into a plan for the conquest of the world. The German General Staff as an inst.i.tution had, par excellence, as its aim and first object, "power," "concentration of power" and "efficiency." It took the leaders.h.i.+p in all branches of life and industry.

Militarism and industrialism are almost synonymous from the mechanical point of view; they are both of them power. They both have to use the same scientific methods and in the _present_ conditions of the world they are dependent upon each other, for war cannot be waged without strong industries. Here we have to face the fact that geometrically progressing industry can not live without new markets, which under present conditions have been largely acquired, directly or indirectly, by the power of the army; and this has been the case with Germany. If we curse Germany for being a "military nation" we can, with no less justice, curse her for being a _completely_ "industrialized nation." If we add to that her nationally selfish and narrow national aim, we will readily understand this "world peach." Those who have tasted it know something of its sweetness.

There is no need to go into further details. Special books give us all the data. That which is of interest is the impersonal fact that what was the _strength_ and _power_ of Germany is the best possible ill.u.s.tration we have had of what science and a sort of mathematical philosophy are able to accomplish, even when directed, not to the welfare of Humanity, but to that of a relatively small group of people. The above-cited political philosophies had a very p.r.o.nounced effect upon Marx. One of the branches of socialism is the so-called state socialism. State socialists, as the name indicates, believe that the state should a.s.sume the most important functions in society. It is obvious that in monarchical countries where "G.o.d-given" rulers represent the state, such a theory is not unwelcome, as it gives the rulers an opportunity to show a sort of "advanced liberalism," which serves to strengthen their power. The astute Bismarck can not be suspected of being a progressionist in the modern sense but, being a product of German culture and philosophy, all his ideals were those of a strong state. He was a proclaimed advocate of state socialism.

Since 1879 at least, Bismarck was considered almost the leading spirit of paternal state socialism. He was a believer and promoter of the close relation of the state and the railways, keeping always in view a thorough nationalization which he finally accomplished. This fact eliminated from German public life all that phase of corruption which private owners.h.i.+p of railroads brings in any country, the railroad being the very life of any country.

To sum up: Germany applied the most scientific methods to build up her national power; she understood the elements of "power," for they were disclosed to her by her science and her philosophy. She applied technological methods in every part of her civil life, and thus built her gigantic power. Her industrial life followed the military way; her military strength was built on industrial power. And so the vicious circle. Germany adopted a _collective_ aim instead of a personal individualistic aim, and because of this broader aim, she was able to mobilize and to keep mobilized all her moral, political and industrial forces for long years before the war. The direct effect of this system of continuous mobilization was over-production. For this she desperately needed new markets. The cheapest and quickest way to acquire them, if they were not to be grabbed otherwise, was to conquer them by a victorious war.

Her plans progressed according to the program, all except the victory in the battle fields.

This war was a calamity of unprecedented magnitude for the world and it is our duty to study it dispa.s.sionately and learn the lesson of it, if we do not want to be moral accomplices of this great modern crime, by letting the world drift into an even worse catastrophe. We have to arouse ourselves from our inertia and go to the bottom of this problem and a.n.a.lyse it ruthlessly, no matter whether the a.n.a.lysis be pleasant or not.

We must value everyone of our "ten sacred dead" at least as much as we value one rabbit killed in scientific laboratories, and take the lesson to heart or be prepared for a repet.i.tion of world slaughter.

If Human Engineering had been established long ago our social system would have been different, our civilization would have been much higher, this war would have been avoided. We do not need to delude ourselves. The World War was the result of badly balanced social and economic forces. The world needs other "balances of power" than such as are devised by lawyers and politicians, by single-selfish or group-selfish interests. Humanity is reaching out for a science and art of human guidance based upon a right understanding of human nature.

Chapter IX. Manhood Of Humanity

In a previous chapter I have said that the World War marks the end of one vast period in the life of humankind and marks the beginning of another.

It marks the end of Humanity's Childhood and the beginning of Humanity's Manhood.

Our human Past is a mighty fact of our world. Many facts are unstable, impermanent, and evanescent-they are here to-day, and to-morrow they are gone. Not so with the great fact of our human Past. Our past abides.

"It is permanent. It can be counted on. It is nearly eternal as the race of man. Out of that past we have come. Into it we are constantly returning. Meanwhile, it is of the utmost importance to our lives. It contains the _roots_ of all we are, and of all we have of wisdom, of science, of philosophy, of art, of jurisprudence, of customs and inst.i.tutions. It contains the record or ruins of all the experiments that man has made during a quarter or a half million years in the art of living in this world."

(Keyser, _Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking_.)

In our relation to the past there are three wide-open ways in which one may be a fool. One of the ways is the way of ignoring the past-the way of remaining blankly ignorant of the human past as the animals are blankly ignorant of _their_ past and so of drifting through life as animals do, without reference to the experience of bygone generations. Fools of this type may be called drifting fools or Drifters. Another way to be a fool-a very alluring way-is that of falsifying the past by _idealizing_ it-by stupidly disregarding its vices, misery, ignorance, slothfulness, and folly, and stupidly magnifying its virtues, happiness, knowledge, achievements and wisdom; it is the way of the self-complacent-the way of those who, being comfortably situated and prosperous, are opposed to change; the past, they say, was wise for it produced the present and the present is good-let us alone. Fools of this type may be called idolatrous fools, wors.h.i.+ping the Past; or static fools, contented with the Present; or cowardly fools, opposed to change, fearful of the Future. A third way to be a fool-which is also alluring-is the opposite of the foregoing; it is the way of those who falsify the past by stupidly and contemptuously disregarding its virtues, its happiness, its knowledge, its great achievements, and its wisdom, and by stupidly or dishonestly magnifying its vices, its misery, its ignorance, its great slothfulness, and its folly; it is apt to be the way of the woeful, the unprosperous, the desperate-especially the way of such as find escape from the bore of routine life in the excitements of unrest, turbulence, and change; the past, they say, was all wrong, for it produced the present and the present is thoroughly bad-let us destroy it, root and branch. Fools of this type may be called scorning fools, Scorners of the Past; or destroying fools, Destroyers of the Present; or dynamic fools, Revelers in the excitements of Change.

Such are the children of folly: (1) Drifting fools-ignorers of the past-disregarders of race experience-thoughtless floaters on the s.h.i.+fting currents of human affairs; (2) Static fools-idealizers of the past-complacent lovers of the present-enemies of change-fearful of the future; (3) Dynamic fools-scorners of the past-haters of the present-destroyers of the works of the dead-most _modest_ of fools, each of them saying: "What ought to be begins with _Me_; I will make the world a paradise; but my genius must be free; _now_ it is hampered by the existing 'order'-the bungling work of the past; I will destroy it; I will start with chaos; we need light-the Sun casts shadows-I will begin by blotting out the Sun; then the world will be full of glory-the light of my genius."

In striking contrast with that three-fold division of Folly, the counsel of Wisdom is one, and it is one with the sober counsel of Common Sense.

What is that counsel? What is the united counsel of wisdom and common sense respecting the past? The answer is easy and easy to understand. The counsel is this: Do not ignore the past but study it-study it diligently as being the mightiest factor among the great factors of our human world; endeavor to view the past justly, to contemplate it as it was and is, to see it _whole_-to see it in true perspective-magnifying neither its good nor its evil, neither its knowledge nor its ignorance, neither its enterprise nor its slothfulness, neither its achievements nor its failures; as the salient facts are ascertained, endeavor to account for them, to find their causes, their favoring conditions, to explain the facts to understand them, applying always the question _Why?_ Centuries of centuries of cruel superst.i.tion-Why? Centuries of centuries of almost complete ignorance of natural law-Why? Centuries of centuries of monstrous misconceptions of human nature-Why? Measureless creations, wastings and destructions of wealth-Why? Endless rolling cycles of enterprise, stagnation, and decay-Why? Interminable alterations of peace and war, enslavements and emanc.i.p.ations-Why? Age after age of world-wide wors.h.i.+p of man-made G.o.ds, silly, savage, enthroned by myth and magic, celebrated and supported by poetry and the wayward speculations of ignorant "sages"-Why?

Age upon age of world-wide slow developments of useful inventions, craftsmans.h.i.+p, commerce, and art-Why? Ages of dark impulsive groping before the slow discovery of reason, followed by centuries of belief in the sufficiency of ratiocination unaided by systematic observation and experiment-Why? At length the dawn of scientific method and science, the growth of natural knowledge, immeasurable expansion of the universe _in Time_ and _in s.p.a.ce_, belief in the lawfulness of Nature, rapidly increasing subjugation of natural forces to human control, growing faith in the limitless progressibility of human knowledge and in the limitless perfectibility of human welfare-Why? The widely diverse peoples of the world constrained by scientific progress to live together as in one community upon a greatly shrunken and rapidly shrinking planet, the unpreparedness of existing ethics, law, philosophy, economics, politics and government to meet the exigencies thus arising-Why?

Such I take to be the counsel of wisdom-the simple wisdom of sober common sense. To ascertain the salient facts of our immense human past and then to explain them in terms of their causes and conditions is not an easy task. It is an exceedingly difficult one, requiring the labor of many men, of many generations; but it must be performed; for it is only in proportion as we learn to know the great facts of our human past and their causes that we are enabled to understand our human present, for the present is the child of the past; and it is only in proportion as we thus learn to understand the present that we can face the future with confidence and competence. Past, Present, Future-these can not be understood singly and separately-they are welded together indissolubly as _one_.

The period of humanity's childhood has been long-300,000 to 500,000 years, according to the witness of human relics, ruins and records of the caves and the rocks-a stretch of time too vast for our imaginations to grasp. Of that immense succession of ages, except a minute fraction of it including our own time, we have, properly speaking, no history; we have only a rude, dim, broken outline. Herodotus, whom we call "the father of history"

proper, lived less than 2500 years ago. What is 2500 years compared with the whole backward stretch of human time? We have to say that the father of human history lived but yesterday-a virtual contemporary of those now living. Our humankind groped upon this globe for probably 400,000 years before the writing of what we call history had even begun. If we regard history as a kind of _racial memory_, what must we say of our race's memory? It is like that of a man of 20 years whose recollection extends back less than 3 months or like that of a man of 60 years whose recollection fails to reach any event of the first 59 years of his life.

Owing to the work of geologists, paleontologists, ethnologists and their co-workers, the history of prehistoric man will grow, just as we know to-day more about the life of mankind in the time of Herodotus than Herodotus himself knew. Meanwhile we must try to make the best use of such historical knowledge of man as we now possess.

Even if the story of humanity's childhood were fully recorded in the libraries of the world, it would not be possible in this brief writing to recount the story in even the most summary fas.h.i.+on. Except the tale of recent years, the story is known as I have said, only in outline, rude, dim and broken, but for the present purpose this will suffice. Countless mult.i.tudes of details are lost-most of them doubtless forever. But we need not despair. The really great facts of our racial childhood-the ma.s.sive, dominant, outstanding facts-are sufficiently clear for our guidance in the present enterprise. And what do we know?

We know that the period of our human childhood has been inconceivably long; we know that in the far distant time, the first specimens of humankind-the initial members of the time-binding race of man-were absolutely without human knowledge of the hostile world in which they found themselves; we know that they had no conception of what they themselves were; we know that they had neither speech nor art nor philosophy nor religion nor science nor tools nor human history nor human tradition; we know, though we to-day can hardly imagine it, that their _sole_ equipment for _initiating_ the career of the human race was that peculiar faculty which made them human-the capacity of man for binding time; we know that they actually did that work of initiation, without any guidance or example, maxim or precedent; and we know that they were able to do it just because the power of initiation-the power to originate-is a time-binding power.

What else do we know of the earliest part of humanity's childhood? We know that in that far-distant age, our ancestors-being, not animals, but human creatures-not only _began_ to live in the human dimension of life-forever above the level of animals-but _continued_ therein, taking not only the first step, but the second, the third, and so on indefinitely; we know, in other words, that they were progressive creatures, that they made advancement; we know that their progress was _natural_ to them-as natural as swimming is to fishes or as flying is to birds-for both the impulse and the ability to progress-to make improvement-to do greater things by help of things already done-are of the very nature of the time-binding capacity which makes humans human.

We know that time-binding capacity-the capacity for acc.u.mulating racial experience, enlarging it, and transmitting it for future expansion-is the peculiar power, the characteristic energy, the definitive nature, the defining mark, of man; we know that the mental power, the time-binding capacity, of our pre-historic ancestors, was the same in _kind_ as our own, if not in degree; we know that it is natural for this capacity, the highest known agency of Nature, to produce ideas, inventions, insights, doctrines, knowledge and other forms of wealth; we know that progress in what we call civilization, which is nothing but progress in the production and right use of material and spiritual wealth, has been possible and actual simply and solely because the products of time-binding work not only _survive_, but naturally tend to propagate their kind-ideas begetting ideas, inventions leading to other inventions, knowledge breeding knowledge; we therefore, know that the amount of progress which a single generation can make, if it have an adequate supply of raw material and be unhampered by hostile circ.u.mstances, depends, not only upon its native capacity for binding time, but also-and this is of the utmost importance-upon the total progress made by preceding generations-upon the inherited fruit, that is, of the time-binding toil of the dead; accordingly we know that the amount of progress a single generation can thus make is what mathematicians call an increasing function of time, and not only an increasing function but an increasing _exponential_ function of time-a function like _PR__T_, as already explained; we know, too, that the _total_ progress which _T_ successive generations can thus make is:

_R/R-1_(_PR__T-P_)

which is also an increasing exponential function of time; we know from the differential calculus that these functions-which represent natural laws, laws of human _nature_, laws of the time-binding energies of man-are very remarkable functions-not only do they increase with time but their _rates_ of increase are also exponential functions of time and so the rates of increase themselves increase at rates which are, again, exponential functions, and so on and on without limit; that, I say, is a marvelous fact, and it is for us a fact of immeasurable significance; for it means that the time-binding power of man is such that, if it be allowed to operate naturally, civilization-the production and right use of material and spiritual wealth-will not only grow towards infinity (as mathematicians say), but will thus grow with a _swiftness_ which is not constant but which itself grows towards infinity with a swiftness which, again, is not constant but increases according to the same law, and so on indefinitely. We thus see, if we will only retire to our cloisters and contemplate it, that the proper life of man _as man_ is not life-in-s.p.a.ce like that of animals, but is life-in-time; we thus see that in distinctively human life, in the life of man as man, the past is present and the dead survive destined to greet and to bless the unborn generations: time, bound-up time, is literally of the core and substance of civilization. So it has been since the beginning of man.

We know that the total progress made in the long course of humanity's childhood, though it is absolutely great, is relatively small; we know that, compared with no-civilization, our present civilization is vast and rich in many ways; we know, however, that, if the time-binding energies of humanity had been always permitted to operate unhampered by hostile circ.u.mstances, they would long ere now have produced a state of civilization compared with which our present estate would seem mean, meagre, savage. For we know that those peculiar energies-the civilization-producing energies of man-far from being always permitted to operate according to the laws of their nature, have _never_ been permitted so to operate, but have always been hampered and are hampered to-day by hostile circ.u.mstances. And, if we reflect, we may know well enough what the enemies-the hostile circ.u.mstances-have been and are. We know that in the beginning of humanity's childhood-in its babyhood, so to speak-there was, as already said, no _capital_ whatever to start with-no material wealth-no spiritual wealth in the form of knowledge of the world or the nature of man-no existing fruit of dead men's toil-no bound-up time-nothing but wild and raw material, whose very location, properties and potencies had all to be discovered; even now, because we have inherited so much bound-up time and because our imaginations have been so little disciplined to understand realities, we can scarcely picture to ourselves the actual conditions of that far-off time of humanity's babyhood; still less do we realize that present civilization has hardly begun to be that of enlightened men. We know, moreover, that the time-binding energies of our remote ancestors were hampered and baulked, in a measure too vast for our imaginations, by immense geologic and climatic changes, both sudden and secular, unforeseen and irresistible-by earthquake and storm, by age-long seasons of flood and frost and heat and drought, not only destroying both natural resources and the slowly acc.u.mulated products of by-gone generations but often extinguis.h.i.+ng the people themselves with the centers and abodes of struggling civilization.

Of all the hostile circ.u.mstances, of all the causes which throughout the long period of humanity's childhood have operated to keep civilization and human welfare from progressing in full accord with the natural laws of the time-binding energies of man, the most potent cause and most disastrous, a cause still everywhere in operation, remains to be mentioned. I mean human ignorance. I do not mean ignorance of physical facts and the laws of physical nature for this latter ignorance is in large measure the effect of the cause I have in mind. The ignorance I mean is far more fundamental and far more potent. I mean human ignorance of _Human Nature_-I mean man's ignorance of what Man is-I mean false conceptions of the rightful place of man in the scheme of life and the order of the world. What the false conceptions are I have already pointed out. They are two. One of them is the conception according to which human beings are animals. The other one is the conception according to which human beings have no place in Nature but are hybrids of natural and _super_natural, animals combined with something "divine." Both of them are characteristic of humanity's childhood; both of them are erroneous, and both of them have done infinite harm in a thousand ways. Whose is the fault? In a deep sense, it is the fault of none. Man started with no capital-on knowledge-with nothing but his physical strength and the natural stirring within of the capacity for binding time; and so he had to grope. It is not strange that he was puzzled by himself. It is not strange that he thought himself an animal; for he has animal propensities as a cube has surfaces, and his animal propensities were so obtrusive, so very evident to physical sense-he was born, grew, had legs and hair, ate, ran, slept, died-all just like animals-while his distinctive mark, his time-binding capacity, was subtle; it was spiritual; it was not a _visible organ_ but an _invisible function_; it was the energy called intellect or mind, which the physical senses do not perceive; and so I say it is not strange-it is indeed very sad and very pathetic-but it is not to be wondered at that human beings have falsely believed themselves to be animals. So, too, of the rival belief-the belief that humans are neither natural nor supernatural but are both at once, at once brutal and divine, hybrid offspring of beast and G.o.d. The belief is monstrous, it is very pathetic and very sad, but its origin is easy to understand; once invented, it became a powerful instrument for evil men, for impostors, but it was not invented by them; it was only an erroneous result of an honest effort to understand and to explain. For the obvious facts created a real puzzle to be explained: On the one hand, men, women and children-animal-hunting and animal-hunted human beings-certainly resembled animals physically in a hundred unmistakable ways; on the other hand, it became more and more evident that the same animal-resembling human beings could do many things which animals never did and could not do. Here was a puzzle, a mystery. Time-binding curiosity demanded an explanation. What was it to be? Natural science had not yet arisen; critical conception-conception that avoids the mixing of dimensions-was in the state of feeble infancy. It is easy to understand what the answer had to be-childish and mythical; and so it was-humans are neither animals nor G.o.ds, neither natural nor _super_natural, they are both at once, a mixture, a mysterious union of animal with something "divine."

Such, then, are the two rival answers which, in the long dark, groping course of humanity's childhood, human beings have given to the most important of all questions-the question: What is Man? I have said that the answers, no matter how sincere, no matter how honestly arrived at, are erroneous, false to fact, and monstrous. I have said, and I repeat, that the misconceptions involved in them have done more throughout the by-gone centuries, and are doing more to-day, than all other hindering causes, to hamper and thwart the _natural_ activity of the time-binding energies of man and thus to r.e.t.a.r.d the _natural_ progress of civilization. It is not merely our privilege, it is our high and solemn duty, to examine them. To perform the great duty is not an easy task. The misconceptions in question have come down to us from remote antiquity; they have not come down singly, separately, clean-cut, clear and well-defined; they have come _entangled_ in the complicated mesh of traditional opinions and creeds that const.i.tute the vulgar "philosophy"-the mental fog-of our time. If we are to perform the duty of examining them we have first of all to draw them forth, to disengage them from our inherited tangle of beliefs and frame them in suitable words; we have next to bring ourselves to realize vividly and keenly that the conceptions, thus disentangled and framed, are in fact, whether they be true or false, at the very heart of the social philosophy of the world; we have in the third place to detect the fundamental character of the blunder involved in them-to see clearly and coldly wherein they are wrong and why they are ruinous; we have, finally, to trace, if we can, their deadly effects both in the course of human history and in the present status of our human world.

The task of disengaging the two monstrous misconceptions from the tangled skein of inherited beliefs and framing them in words, I have already repeatedly performed. Let us keep the results in mind. Here they are in their nakedness: (1) Human beings-men, women, and children-are animals (and so they are natural): (2) human beings are neither natural nor _super_natural, neither wholly animal nor wholly "divine," but are _both_ natural and _super_natural _at once_-a sort of mysterious hybrid compound of brute and G.o.ds.

The second part of our task-which is the reader's task as much as mine-is not so easy; and the reason is evident. It is this: The false creeds in question-the fatal misconceptions they involve-are so _familiar_ to us-they have been so long and so deeply imbedded in our thought and speech and ways of life-we have been so thoroughly _bred_ in them by home and school and church and state-that we _habitually_ and _unconsciously_ take them for granted and have to be virtually _stung_ into an awareness of the fact that we do actually hold them and that they do actually reign to-day throughout the world and have so reigned from time immemorial. We have, therefore, to shake ourselves awake, to _p.r.i.c.k_ ourselves into a realization of the truth.

I a.s.sume that the reader is at once hard-headed, rational, I mean, and interested in the welfare of mankind. If he is not, he will not be a "reader" of this book. He, therefore, knows that the third task-the task of detecting and exposing the fundamental error of the misconceptions in question-is a task of the utmost importance. What is that error? It is, I have said, an error in logic. But logical errors are not all alike-they are of many kinds. What is the "kind" of _this_ one? It is the kind that consists in what mathematicians call "confusion of types," or "mixing of dimensions." The answer can not be made too clear nor too emphatic, for its importance in the criticism of _all_ our thinking is great beyond measure. There are millions of examples that help to make the matter clear. I will again employ the simplest of them-one so simple that a child can understand it. It is a mathematical example, as it ought to be, for the whole question of logical types, or dimensions, is a mathematical one.

I beg the reader not to shy at, or run away from, the mere word mathematical, for, although most of us have but little mathematical _knowledge_, we all of us have the mathematical _spirit_, for else we should not be human-we are all of us mathematicians _at heart_. Let us, then, proceed confidently and at once to our simple example. Here is a _surface_, say a _plane_ surface. It has length and breadth-and so it has, we say, _two_ dimensions; next consider a _solid_, say a _cube_. It has length, breadth and thickness-and so _it_ has, we say, _three_ dimensions.

Now we notice that the cube _has_ surfaces and so _has certain surface properties_. Do we, therefore, say that a solid _is_ a surface? That the cube is a member of the cla.s.s of surfaces? If we did, we should be fools-type-confusing fools-dimension-mixing fools. That is evident. Or suppose we notice that solids have certain _surface_ properties and certain properties that surfaces do _not_ have; and suppose we say the _surface_ properties of solids are _natural_ but the other properties are so mysterious that they must be "_super_natural" or somehow "divine"; and suppose we then say that solids are unions, mixtures, compounds or hybrids of surfaces and something divine or _super_natural; is it not evident that, if we did that, we should be again blundering like fools?

Type-confusing fools? Dimension-mixing fools? That such would be the case any one can see. Let us now consider animals and human beings, and let us look squarely and candidly at the facts. To get a start, think for a moment of plants. Plants are living things; they take, transform and appropriate the energies of sun, soil, and air, but they have _not_ the _autonomous_ power to move about in s.p.a.ce; we may say that plants const.i.tute the lowest order or cla.s.s or type or dimension of life-the dimension _one_; plants, we see are binders of the _basic_ energies of the world. What of animals? Like the plants, animals, too, take in, transform and appropriate the energies of sun, soil and air, though in large part they take them in forms already prepared by the plants themselves; but, _unlike_ the plants, animals possess the _autonomous_ power to move about in s.p.a.ce-to creep or crawl or run or swim or fly-it is thus evident that, compared with plants, animals belong to a higher order, or higher cla.s.s, or higher type, or higher dimension of life; we may therefore say that the type of animal life is a type of _two_ dimensions-a two-dimensional type; I have called them s.p.a.ce-binders because they are distinguished, or marked, by their autonomous power to move about in s.p.a.ce, to abandon one place and occupy another and so to appropriate the natural fruits of many localities; the life of animals is thus a life-in-s.p.a.ce in a sense evidently not applicable to plants. And now what shall we say of _Man_?

Like the animals, human beings have indeed the power of mobility-the autonomous power to move-the capacity for binding s.p.a.ce, and it is obvious that, if they possessed no capacity of higher order, men, women and children would indeed be animals. But what are the facts? The facts, if we will but note them and reflect upon them, are such as to show us that the chasm separating human nature from animal nature is even wider and deeper than the chasm between animal life and the life of plants. For man improves, animals do not; man progresses, animals do not; man invents more and more complicated tools, animals do not; man is a creator of material and spiritual wealth, animals are not; man is a builder of civilization, animals are not; man makes the _past live in the present and the present in the future_, animals do not; man is thus a _binder of time_, animals are not. In the light of such considerations, if only we will attend to their mighty significance, it is as clear as anything can be or can become, that the life of man-the time-binder-is as radically distinct from that of animals-mere s.p.a.ce-binders-as animal life is distinct from that of plants or as the nature of a solid is distinct from that of a surface, or that of a surface from that of a line. It is, therefore, perfectly manifest that, when we regard human beings as animals or as mixtures of animal nature with something mysteriously _super_natural, we are guilty of the same _kind_ of blunder as if we regarded animals as plants or as plants touched by "divinity"-the same _kind_ of blunder as that of regarding a solid as a surface or as a surface miraculously transfigured by some mysterious influence from outside the universe of s.p.a.ce. It is thus evident that our guilt in the matter is the guilt of a blunder that is _fundamental_-a confusing of types, a mixing of dimensions.

Nothing can be more disastrous. For what are the consequences of that kind of error? Let the reader reflect. He knows that, if our ancestors had committed that kind of error regarding lines and surfaces and solids, there would to-day be no science of geometry; and he knows that, if there were no geometry, there would be no architecture in the world, no surveying, no railroads, no astronomy, no charting of the seas, no steams.h.i.+ps, no engineering, nothing whatever of the now familiar world-wide affairs made possible by the scientific conquest of s.p.a.ce. I say again, let the reader reflect; for if he does not, he will here miss the gravity of a most momentous truth. He readily sees, in the case supposed, how very appalling the consequences would have been if, throughout the period of humanity's childhood, there had occurred a certain confusion of types, a certain mixing of dimensions, and he is _enabled_ to see it just because, happily, the blunder was _not_ made or, if made, was not persisted in, for, if it had been made and persisted in, then the great and now familiar things of which it would have deprived the world would not be here; we should not now be able even to imagine them, and so we could not now compute even roughly the tremendous magnitude of the blunder's disastrous consequences. Let the reader not deviate nor falter nor stagger here; let him shoulder the burden of the mighty argument and bear it to the goal. He easily perceives the truly appalling consequences that _would_ have inevitably followed from the error of confusing types-the error of mixing dimensions-in the matter of lines and surfaces and solids, _if_ that error had been committed and persisted in throughout the centuries; he _can_ perceive those consequences just because the error was _not_ made and hence the great things of which (had the blunder been made) it would have deprived the world are here, so that he can say: "Behold those splendid things-the science of geometry and its manifold applications everywhere s.h.i.+ning in human affairs-imagine all of them gone, imagine the world if they had never been, and you will have a measure of the consequences that would have followed violation of the law of types, the law of dimensions, in the matter of lines, surfaces and solids." But, now, in regard to the exactly similar error respecting the nature of man, the situation is reversed; for this blunder, unlike the other one, is not merely hypothetical; we have seen that it was actually committed and has been actually persisted in from time immemorial; not merely for years or for decades or for centuries but for _centuries_ of _centuries_ including our own day, it has lain athwart the course of human progress; age after age it has hampered and baulked the natural activity of the time-binding energies-the civilization-producing energies-of humanity. How are we to estimate its consequences? Let the reader keep in mind that the error is fundamental-a type-confusing blunder (like that supposed regarding geometric ent.i.ties); let him reflect, moreover, that it affects, not merely one of our human concerns, but _all_ of them, since it is an error regarding the _center_ of them all-regarding the very _nature_ of man himself; and he will know, as well as anything can be known, that the consequences of the ages-old blunder have been and are very momentous and very terrible. Their measure is indeed beyond our power; we cannot describe them adequately, we cannot delineate their proportions, for we cannot truly imagine them; and the reason is plain: it is that those advancements of civilization, those augmentations of material and spiritual wealth, all of the glorious achievements of which the tragic blunder has deprived the world, are none of them here; they have not been produced; and so we cannot say, as in the other case: "Look upon these splendid treasures of bound-up time, imagine them taken away, and your sense of the appalling loss will give you the measure required." It is evident that the glories of which the misconceptions of human nature have deprived manhood must long remain, perhaps forever, in the sad realm of dreams regarding great and n.o.ble things that might have been.

I have said that the duty of examining the misconceptions imposes upon us four obligations. Three of these we have performed: we have disengaged the beliefs in question from the complicated tangle of opinions in which they have come down to us from remote antiquity; we have recognized the necessity and the duty of virtually stinging ourselves into an awareness of the fact that we have actually held them for true and that from time immemorial they have poured their virus into the heart of ethics, economics, politics and government throughout the world; we have seen not only that the beliefs are false but that their falseness is due to a blunder of the most fundamental kind-the blunder of mixing dimensions or confusing types. As already said, the fourth one of the mentioned tasks is that of tracing, if we can, the blunder's deadly effects both in human history and in the present status of the world. We have just reached the conclusion that this task cannot be _fully_ performed; for there can be no doubt, as we have seen, that, if the blunder had not been committed and persisted in, the world would now possess a civilization so far advanced, so rich in the spiritual fruits of time and toil, as to be utterly beyond our present power to conceive or imagine it.