The problems to be dealt with in this chapter are not easy, but they are
exceedingly important. To classify phenomena correctly, they must be
correctly analysed and clearly defined. For the sake of clearness I will
use the simplest illustrations and, avoiding as much as possible the
difficulties of technical terms, will use language easily to be understood
by every one. In some cases the words will indeed have a technical meaning
and it will be necessary to exercise great care against the danger of
giving false impressions; for clear ideas are essential to sound thinking.
As a matter of fact our common daily speech is ill adapted for the precise
expression of thought; even so-called “scientific” language is often too
vague for the purpose and requires further refining. Some may say that it
is useless and unnecessary to lay so much stress on correct thinking and
precise expression; that it has no practical value; for they say that
“business” language is good enough to “talk business,” or to put
“something over” the other fellow. But a little explanation will show that
precision is often of the greatest importance.
Humanity is a peculiar class of life which, in some degree, determines its
own destinies; therefore in practical life _words_ and _ideas_ become
_facts_—facts, moreover, which bring about important practical
consequences. For instance, many millions of human beings have defined a
stroke of lightning as being the “punishment of God” of evil men; other
millions have defined it as a “natural, casual, periodical phenomenon”;
yet other millions have defined it as an “electric spark.” What has been
the result of these “non-important” definitions in practical life? In the
case of the first definition, when lightning struck a house, the
population naturally made no attempt to save the house or anything in it,
because to do so would be against the “definition” which proclaims the
phenomenon to be a “punishment for evil,” any attempt to prevent or check
the destruction would be an impious act; the sinner would be guilty of
“resisting the supreme law” and would deserve to be punished by death.
Now in the second instance, a stricken building is treated just as any
tree overturned by storm; the people save what they can and try to
extinguish the fire. In both instances, the behavior of the populace is
the same in one respect; if caught in the open by a storm they take refuge
under a tree—a means of safety involving maximum danger but the people do
not know it.
Now in the third instance, in which the population have a scientifically
correct definition of lightning, they provide their houses with lightning
rods; and if they are caught by a storm in the open they neither run nor
hide under a tree; but when the storm is directly over their heads, they
put themselves in a position of minimum exposure by lying flat on the
ground until the storm has passed.
Such examples could be given without end, but there is another example of
sufficient vital importance to be given here, as it has to do with our
conception of the social and economic system, and the state. If our
institutions are considered “God-given”—sacred and therefore static—every
reformer or advocate of change should be treated as a criminal or “a
danger to the existing order” and hanged or at least put in jail for life.
But now, if our institutions are “man made,” imperfect and often foolish,
and subject to change all the time steadily and dynamically in obedience
to some known or unknown law; then of course all reactionaries would be a
“danger to the natural order” and they should be treated the same way. The
importance of definitions can be seen in all other fields of practical
life; definitions create conditions. To know the world in which we live,
we have to analyse facts by help of such facts as we know in daily
practice and such facts as are established in scientific laboratories
where men do not jump to conclusions. In some places it will be necessary
to make statements that will have to await full justification at a later
stage of the discussion. This will be necessary to indicate the trend of
the analysis.
The aim of the analysis is to give us just conceptions, correct
definitions, and true propositions. The process is slow, progressive, and
endless. The problems are infinitely many, and it is necessary to select.
Fortunately the solution of a few leads automatically to the solution of
many others. Some of the greatest and most far-reaching scientific
discoveries have been nothing else than a few correct definitions, a few
just concepts and a few true propositions. Such, for example, was the work
of Euclid, Newton and Leibnitz—a few correct definitions, a few just
concepts, a few true propositions; but these have been extended and
multiplied, sometimes by men of creative genius, and often almost
automatically by men of merely good sense and fair talent.
The matter of definition, I have said, is very important. I am not now
speaking of _nominal_ definitions, which for convenience merely give names
to known objects. I am speaking of such definitions of phenomena as result
from correct analysis of the phenomena. Nominal definitions are mere
conveniences and are neither true nor false; but analytic definitions are
definitive _propositions_ and are true or else false. Let us dwell upon
the matter a little more.
In the illustration of the definitions of lightning, there were three; the
first was the most mistaken and its application brought the most harm; the
second was less incorrect and the practical results less bad; the third
under the present conditions of our knowledge, was the “true one” and it
brought the maximum benefit. This lightning illustration suggests the
important idea of _relative_ truth and _relative_ falsehood—the idea, that
is, of degrees of truth and degrees of falsehood. A definition may be
neither absolutely true nor absolutely false; but of two definitions of
the same thing, one of them may be truer or falser than the other.
If, for illustration’s sake, we call the first “truth” _A_, (alpha 1), the
second one _A_2 (alpha 2), the third one _A_3 (alpha 3), we may suppose
that a genius appears who has the faculty to surpass all the other
relative truths _A_1, _A_2, _A_3, ... _A_n and gives us an absolute or
final truth, VALID IN INFINITY (_A_infinity) say a final definition, that
lightning is so ... and so ..., a kind of energy which flows, let us say,
through a glass tube filled with charcoal. Then of course this definition
would immediately make obvious what use could be made of it. We could
erect glass towers filled with charcoal and so secure an unlimited flow of
available free energy and our whole life would be affected in an untold
degree. This example explains the importance of correct definitions.
But to take another example: there is such a thing as a phenomenon called
the “color” red. Imagine how it might be defined. A reactionary would call
it a “Bolshevik” (_A_1); a Bolshevik would say “My color” (_A_2); a
color-blind person would say “such a thing does not exist” (_A_3); a
Daltonist would say “that is green” (_A_4); a metaphysician would say
“that is the soul of whiskey” (_A_5); an historian would say “that is the
color of the ink with which human history has been written” (_A_6); an
uneducated person would say “that is the color of blood” (_A_7); the
modern scientist would say “it is the light of such and such wave length”
(_A_8). If this last definition be “valid in infinity” or not we do not
know, but it is, nevertheless, a “scientific truth” in the present
condition of our knowledge.
This final but unknown “truth valid in infinity” is somehow perceived or
felt by us as an ideal, for in countless years of observation we have
formed a series of less and less false, more and more nearly true “ideas”
about the phenomenon. The “ideas” are _reflexes_ of the phenomenon,
reflected in our midst as in a mirror; the reflexes may be distorted, as
in a convex or concave mirror, but they suggest an ideal reflex valid in
infinity. It is of the utmost importance to realize that the words which
are used to express the ideas and the ideals are THE MATERIALIZATION of
the ideas and ideal; it is only by words that we are enabled to give to
other human beings an exact or nearly exact impression which we have had
of the phenomenon.
It may be helpful to illustrate this process by an example. Let us suppose
that a man makes an experiment of doing his own portrait from a mirror,
which may be plane, concave or convex. If he looks into a plane mirror, he
will see his true likeness; even so, if he be a poor designer, he will
draw the likeness badly. Let us suppose that the man has beautiful
features but because the drawing is very poor, it will not convey the
impression that the features of the original were beautiful. If this poor
designer were to look into and work from a concave or convex mirror, the
drawing of his likeness would have practically no resemblance to his
original features.
For correct analysis and true definitions of the cardinal classes of life
in our world it is necessary to have some just ideas about dimensions or
dimensionality. The Britannica gives us some help in this connection. I
will explain briefly by an example. Measurable entities of different kinds
can not be compared directly. Each one must be measured in terms of a unit
of its own kind. A line can have only length and therefore is of one
dimension: a surface has length and width and is therefore said to have
two dimensions; a volume has length, width and thickness and is,
therefore, said to have three dimensions. If we take, for example, a
volume—say a cube—we see that the cube has surfaces and lines and points,
but a volume is not a surface nor a line nor a point. Just these
dimensional differences have an enormous unrealized importance in
practical life, as in the case of taking a line of five units of length
and building upon it a square, the measure of this square (surface) will
not be 5, it will be 25; and the 25 will not be 25 linear units but 25
square or surface units. If upon this square we build a cube, this cube
will have neither 5 nor 25 for its measure; it will have 125, and this
number will not be so many units of length nor of surface but so many
solid or cubic units.
It is as plain as a pike staff that, if we confused _dimensions_ when
computing lengths and areas and volumes, we would wreck all the
architectural and engineering structures of the world, and at the same
time show ourselves stupider than block-heads.
To analyse the classes of life we have to consider two very different
kinds of phenomena: the one embraced under the collective name—Inorganic
chemistry—the other under the collective name—Organic chemistry, or the
chemistry of hydro-carbons. These divisions are made because of the
peculiar properties of the elements chiefly involved in the second class.
The properties of matter are so distributed among the elements that three
of them—Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Carbon—possess an ensemble of unique
characteristics. The number of reactions in inorganic chemistry are
relatively few, but in organic chemistry—in the chemistry of these three
elements the number of different compounds is practically unlimited. Up to
1910, we knew of more than 79 elements of which the whole number of
reactions amounted to only a few hundreds, but among the remaining three
elements—Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen—the reactions were known to be
practically unlimited in number and possibilities; this fact must have
very far reaching consequences. As far as energies are concerned, we have
to take them as nature reveals them to us. Here more than ever,
mathematical thinking is essential and will help enormously. The reactions
in inorganic chemistry always involve the phenomenon of heat, sometimes
light, and in some instances an unusual energy is produced called
electricity. Until now, the radioactive elements represent a group too
insufficiently known for an enlargement here upon this subject.
The organic compounds being unlimited in number and possibilities and with
their unique characteristics, represent of course, a different class of
phenomena, but being, at the same time, _chemical_ they include the basic
chemical phenomena involved in all chemical reactions, but being unique in
many other respects, they also have an infinitely vast field of unique
characteristics. Among the energetic phenomena of organic chemistry,
besides the few mentioned above there are NEW AND UNIQUE energetic
phenomena occurring in this dimension.
Of these phenomena, mention may be made of the phenomenon “life,” the
phenomenon of the “instincts” and of the “mind” in general. These
energetic phenomena are unique for the unique chemistry of the three
unique elements. It is obvious that this “uniqueness” is the reason why
these phenomena must be classified as belonging to or having a higher
dimensionality than belongs to the phenomena of inorganic chemistry just
as the uniqueness of the properties of a volume as compared with surface
properties depends upon the fact that a volume has a higher dimensionality
than a surface. Just as this difference of dimensions makes the whole
difference between the geometry of volumes and the geometry of surfaces,
the difference between the two chemistries involves a difference of
dimensionality.
The higher energies of the chemistries of the higher dimensionality are
very difficult to define; my descriptions are no better than the
description of life given by Professor Wilhelm Roux, in his _Der Kampf der
Teile im Organismus_, Leipzig, 1881, which are equally unsatisfactory. In
want of a better, I quote him. He defines a living being as a natural
object which possesses the following nine characteristic autonomous
activities: Autonomous change, Autonomous excretion, Autonomous ingestion,
Autonomous assimilation, Autonomous growth, Autonomous movement,
Autonomous multiplication, Autonomous transmission of hereditary
characteristics and Autonomous development. The words “Autonomous
activities” are important because they hint at the dimensional differences
of these energies. But a better word should be found to define the
dimensional differences between the activities found in inorganic
chemistry and those found in organic chemistry. We see it is a mistake to
speak about “life” in a crystal, in the same sense in which we use the
word life to name the curious AUTONOMOUS phenomenon of ORGANIC CHEMISTRY,
WHICH IS OF ANOTHER DIMENSION than the activities in inorganic chemistry.
For the so-called life in the crystals—the _not_ AUTONOMOUS (or
anautonomous) activities of crystals—another word than life should be
found. In the theory of crystals the term life is purely rhetorical: its
use there is very injurious to sound science. These old ideas of “life” in
crystals are profoundly unscientific and serve as one of the best examples
of the frequent confusion or intermixing of dimensions—a confusion due to
unmathematical, logically incorrect ways of thinking. If crystals “live,”
then _volumes are surfaces_, and 125 cubic units=25 square
units—absurdities belonging to the “childhood of humanity.”
“Crystals can grow in a proper solution, and can regenerate their
form in such a solution when broken or injured; it is even
possible to prevent or retard the formation of crystals in a
supersaturated solution by preventing ‘germs’ in the air from
getting into the solution, an observation which was later utilized
by Schroeder and Pasteur in their experiments on spontaneous
generation. However, the analogies between a living organism and a
crystal are merely superficial and it is by pointing out the
fundamental differences between the behavior of crystals and that
of living organisms that we can best understand the specific
difference between non-living and living matter. It is true that a
crystal can grow, but it will do so only in a supersaturated
solution of its own substance. Just the reverse is true for living
organisms. In order to make bacteria or the cells of our body
grow, solutions of the split products of the substances composing
them and not the substances themselves must be available to the
cells; second, these solutions must not be supersaturated, on the
contrary, they must be dilute; and third, growth leads in living
organisms to cell division as soon as the mass of the cell reaches
a certain limit. This process of cell division can not be claimed
even metaphorically to exist in a crystal. A correct appreciation
of these facts will give us an insight into the specific
difference between non-living and living matter. The formation of
living matter consists in the synthesis of the proteins, nucleins,
fats, and carbohydrates of the cells, from split products....
“The essential difference between living and non-living matter
consists then in this: the living cell synthesizes its own
complicated specific material from indifferent or non-specific
simple compounds of the surrounding medium, while the crystal
simply adds the molecules found in its supersaturated solution.
This synthetic power of transforming small ‘building stones’ into
the complicated compounds specific for each organism is the
‘secret of life’ or rather one of the secrets of life.” (_The
Organism as a Whole_, by Jacques Loeb.)
It will be explained later that one of the energetic phenomena of organic
chemistry—the “mind,” which is one of the energies characteristic of this
class of phenomena, is “autonomous,” is “self-propelling” and true to its
dimensionality. If we analyse the classes of life, we readily find that
there are three cardinal classes which are radically distinct in function.
A short analysis will disclose to us that, though minerals have various
activities, they are not “living.” The plants have a very definite and
well known function—the transformation of solar energy into organic
chemical energy. They are a class of life which appropriates one kind of
energy, converts it into another kind and stores it up; in that sense they
are a kind of storage battery for the solar energy; and so I define THE
PLANTS AS THE CHEMISTRY-BINDING class of life.
The animals use the highly dynamic products of the _chemistry-binding_
class—the plants—as food, and those products—the results of
plant-transformation—undergo in animals a further transformation into yet
higher forms; and the animals are correspondingly a more dynamic class of
life; their energy is kinetic; they have a remarkable freedom and power
which the plants do not possess—I mean the freedom and faculty to move
about in _space_; and so I define ANIMALS AS THE SPACE-BINDING CLASS OF
LIFE.
And now what shall we say of _human_ beings? What is to be our definition
of Man? Like the animals, human beings do indeed possess the
_space-binding_ capacity but, over and above that, human beings possess a
most remarkable capacity which is entirely peculiar to them—I mean the
capacity to summarise, digest and appropriate the labors and experiences
of the past; I mean the capacity to use the fruits of past labors and
experiences as intellectual or spiritual capital for developments in the
present; I mean the capacity to employ as instruments of increasing power
the accumulated achievements of the all-precious lives of the past
generations spent in trial and error, trial and success; I mean the
capacity of human beings to conduct their lives in the ever increasing
light of inherited wisdom; I mean the capacity in virtue of which man is
at once the heritor of the by-gone ages and the trustee of posterity. And
because humanity is just this magnificent natural agency by which the past
lives in the present and the present for the future, I define HUMANITY, in
the universal tongue of mathematics and mechanics, to be the TIME-BINDING
CLASS OF LIFE.
These definitions of the cardinal classes of life are, it will be noted,
obtained from direct observation; they are so simple and so important that
I cannot over-emphasize the necessity of grasping them and most especially
the definition of Man. For these simple definitions and especially that of
Humanity will profoundly transform the whole conception of human life in
every field of interest and activity; and, what is more important than
all, the definition of Man will give us a starting point for discovering
the _natural_ laws of human nature—of the human class of life. The
definitions of the classes of life represent the different classes as
distinct in respect to dimensionality; and this is extremely important for
no measure or rule of one class can be applied to the other, _without
making grave mistakes_. For example, to treat a human being as an
animal—as a mere space-binder—because humans have certain animal
propensities, is an error of the same type and grossness as to treat a
cube as a surface because it has surface properties. It is absolutely
essential to grasp that fact if we are ever to have a science of human
nature.
We can represent the different classes of life in three life coordinates.
The minerals, with their inorganic activities would be the Zero (0)
dimension of “life”—that is the _lifeless_ class—here represented by the
point _M_.
The plants, with their “autonomous” growth, to be represented by the ONE
DIMENSIONAL line _MP_.
The animals, with their “autonomous” capacity to grow and to be active in
space by the TWO DIMENSIONAL plane _PAM_.
The humans, with their “autonomous” capacity to grow, to be active in
space AND TO BE ACTIVE IN TIME, by the THREE DIMENSIONAL region _MAPH_.
[ A drawing, like labeling the axes of a three-dimensional space. At the
center is “(Minerals) M”. At the top of the Z axis is “H (Humans)”. At the
end of the X axis is “P (Plants)”. At the end of the Y axis is “A
(Animals)”. ]
Such diagrammatic illustrations must not be taken too literally; they are
like figures of speech—helpful if understood—harmful if not understood.
The reader should reflect upon the simple idea of dimensions until he sees
clearly that the idea is not merely a thing of interest or of convenience,
but is absolutely essential as a means of discriminating the cardinal
classes of life from one another and of conceiving each class to be what
it is instead of mixing it confusedly with something radically different.
It will greatly help the reader if he will retire to the quiet of his
cloister and there meditate about as follows. A line has one dimension; a
plane has two; a plane contains lines and so it has line
properties—_one_-dimensional properties—but it has other
properties—_two_-dimensional properties—and it is these that are peculiar
to it, give it its own character, and make it what it is—a plane and not a
line. So animals have some plant properties—they grow, for example—but
animals have other properties—autonomous mobility, for example,—properties
of higher dimensionality or type—and it is these that make animals
_animals_ and not plants. Just so, human beings have certain animal
properties—autonomous mobility, for example, or physical appetites—but
humans have other properties or propensities—ethical sense, for example,
logical sense, inventiveness, progressiveness—properties or propensities
of higher dimensionality, level, or type—and it is these propensities and
powers that make human beings _human_ and _not_ animal. When and only when
this fact is clearly seen and keenly realized, there will begin the
_science of man_—the science and art of _human nature_—for then and only
then we shall begin to escape from the age-long untold immeasurable evils
that come from regarding and treating human beings as animals, as mere
binders of space, and we may look forward to an ethics, a jurisprudence
and economics, a governance—a science and art of human life and
society—based upon the laws of human nature because based upon the just
conception of humanity as the time-binding class of life, creators and
improvers of good, destined to endless advancement, in accord with the
potencies of Human Nature.(9)
Humanity is still in its childhood; we have “bound” so little time in the
course of the centuries, which are so brief in the scheme of the universe.
At the bottom of every human activity, historical fact or trend of
civilization, there lies some doctrine or conception of so-called “truth.”
Apples had fallen from trees for ages, but without any important results
in the economy of humanity. The fact that a fallen apple hit Newton, led
to the discovery of the theory of gravitation; this changed our whole
world conception, our sciences and our activities; it powerfully
stimulated the development of all the branches of natural and
technological knowledge. Even in the event of the Newtonian laws being
proved to be not quite correct, they have served a great purpose in
enabling us to understand natural phenomena in a sufficiently approximate
way to make it possible to build up modern technology and to develop our
physical science to the point where it was necessary and possible to make
a correction of the Newtonian laws.
A similar organic change in our conception of human life and its phenomena
is involved in the foregoing definitions of the classes of life; they will
replace basic errors with scientific truths of fundamental importance;
they will form the basis for scientific development of a permanent
civilization in place of the periodically convulsive so-called
civilizations of the past and present. To know the cause of evil and error
is to find the cure.