Humanity is a dynamic affair, nay, the most dynamic known, because it is
able to transform and direct basic powers. Where power is produced there
must be an issue for it. Power must perforce express itself in some form.
Electricity produced in the skies comes down in an often disastrous
manner. Electricity, produced aimfully, runs our railroads; just so the
enormous power produced by humanity must be used aimfully, in a
constructive way or it will burst into insurrections, revolutions and
wars.
Hitherto we have been guided by those bottomless sciences having only
mythological ideas of power—by ideas moulded by personal ambitions,
personal interests, or downright ignorance. Periodically we have had all
the evils of the lack of a common aim and scientific guidance. Power has
been held by the “God-given” or the “cleverest”; seldom has the power been
given to the “fittest” in the sense of the most capable “to do.” Those who
speak of the “survival of the fittest,” as in the Darwinian theory of
animals, bark an animal language. This rule, being natural only in the
life of plants and animals and appropriate only to the lower forms of
physical life, cannot, except with profound change of meaning, be applied
to the time-binding class of life, without disaster.
The modern vast accumulation of wealth for private purposes, justifies
itself by using the argument of the “survival of the fittest.” Very well,
where there is a “survival,” there must be victims; where there are
victims, there has been fighting. Is this what the users of this argument
mean? Like the Kaiser, they talk peace and make war. This method of doing
things is not in any way new. The world has been accustomed to it for a
very long while.
Personally I believe that most of the masters of speculative
semi-sciences, such as economics, law, ethics, politics and government are
honest in their beliefs and speculations. Simply the right man believes in
the wrong thing; if shown the right way out of the mess he will cease to
hamper progress; he will be of the greatest value to the new world built
by Human Engineers, where human capacities, exponential functions of time,
will operate naturally; where economy, law, ethics, politics and
government will be _dynamic_, not _static_. There is a world of difference
between these two words.
The immediate object of this writing is to show the way to directing the
time-binding powers of mankind for the benefit of all. Human technology,
as an art and science, does not yet exist; some basic principles were
required as a foundation for such a science. Especially was it necessary
to establish a _human_ standard, and thus make it certain and clear that
“space-binders”—the members of the _animal_ world—are “outside of the
human law”—outside the natural laws for the human class of life.
Present civilization is a very complicated affair; although many of our
social problems are very badly managed, sudden changes could not be made
without endangering the welfare and life of all classes of society. In the
meantime, changes must be made because the world can not proceed much
longer under pre-war conditions; they have been too well exposed by facts
for humanity to allow itself to be blindly led again.
In the World War humanity passed through a tremendous trial and for those
years was under the strain of an extensive mobilization campaign. The
necessity of increasing power was manifest; the importance of a common
base or aim became equally manifest. In this case the base, the common
aim, was found in “war patriotism.” This common base enabled all the
states to add up individual powers and build maximum efficiency into a
_collective_ power. This expression is used, not only as a social truth,
but as a known mathematical truth. Those high ideals, which were given
“Urbi et orbi” in thousands of speeches and in millions of propaganda
papers, had a much greater educational importance and influence than most
people are aware of. People have been awakened and have acquired the taste
for those higher purposes which in the past were available only for the
few.
Many old worn-out idols, ideas and ideals have fallen; but what is going
to take their place? We witness an unrest which will not be eliminated
until something essential is done to adjust it. Calm often betokens a
coming storm. The coming storm is not the work of any “bad man,” but it is
the inevitable consequence of a “bad system.” It is dangerous to hide our
heads in the sand, like an ostrich, and fancy we are safe.
“Survival of the fittest” in the commonly used animal sense is not a
theory or principle for a “time-binding” being. This theory is only for
the physical bodies of animals; its effect upon humanity is sinister and
degrading (see App. II). We see the principle at work all about us in
criminal exploitation and profiteering. As a matter of fact, the ages-long
application of this animal principle to human affairs has degraded the
whole human morale in an inconceivably far-reaching way. Personal greed
and selfishness are brazenly owned as principles of conduct. We shrug our
shoulders in acquiescence and proclaim greed and selfishness to be the
very core of human nature, take it all for granted, and let it pass at
that. We have gone so far in our degradation that the prophet of
capitalistic principles, Adam Smith, in his famous _Wealth of Nations_,
arrives at the laws of wealth, not from the phenomena of wealth nor from
statistical statements, but from the phenomena of selfishness—a fact which
shows how far-reaching in its dire influence upon all humanity is the
theory that human beings are “animals.” Of course the effect is very
disastrous. The preceding chapters have shown that the theory is false; it
is false, not only because of its unhappy effects, but it belies the
characteristic nature of man. Human nature, this time-binding power, not
only has the peculiar capacity for perpetual progress, but it has, over
and above all animal propensities, certain qualities constituting it a
distinctive dimension or type of life. Not only our whole collective life
proves a love for higher ideals, but even our dead _give_ us the rich
heritage, material and spiritual, of all their toils. There is nothing
mystical about it; to call SUCH a class a _naturally_ selfish class is not
only nonsensical but monstrous.
This capacity for higher ideals does not originate in some
“_super_natural” outside factor; it is _not_ of extraneous origin, it is
the expression of the time-binding element which we _inherently_ possess,
independently of our “will”; it is an inborn capacity—a _gift_ of nature.
We simply are made this way and not in any other. There is indeed a fine
sense in which we can, if we choose, apply the expression—survival of the
fittest—to the activity of the time-binding energies of man. Having the
peculiar capacity to survive in our deeds, we have an inclination to use
it and we survive in the deeds of our creation; and so there is brought
about the “survival in time” of higher and higher ideals. The moment we
consider Man in his proper dimension—active in TIME—these things become
simple, stupendous, and beautiful.
“Note the radical character of the transformation to be effected.
The world shall no longer be beheld as an alien thing, beheld by
eyes that are not its own. Conception of the whole and by the
whole shall embrace _us_ as _part_, really, literally,
consciously, as the latest term, it may be, of an advancing
sequence of developments, as occupying the highest rank perhaps in
the ever-ascending hierarchy of being, but, at all events, as
emerged and still emerging _natura naturata_ from some propensive
source within. I grant that the change in point of view is hard to
make—old habits, like walls of rock, tending to confine the tides
of consciousness within their accustomed channels—but it can be
made and, by assiduous effort, in the course of time, maintained.
Suppose it done. By that reunion, the whole regains, while the
part retains, the consciousness the latter purloined.... In the
whole universe of events, none is more wonderful than the birth of
wonder, none more curious than the nascence of curiosity itself,
nothing to compare with the dawning of consciousness in the
ancient dark and the gradual extension of psychic life and
illumination throughout a cosmos that before had only _been_. An
eternity of blindly acting, transforming, unconscious existence,
assuming at length, through the birth of sense and intellect,
without loss or break of continuity, the abiding form of fleeting
time.” (C. J. Keyser, loc. cit.)
It must be emphasized that the development of higher ideals is due to the
_natural_ capacity of humanity; the impulse is simply time-binding
impulse. As we have seen, by analysing the functions of the different
classes of life, every class of life has an impulse to exercise its
peculiar capacity or function. Nitrogen resists compound combinations and
if found in such combinations it breaks away as quickly as ever it can.
Birds have wings—they fly. Animals have feet—they run. Man has the
capacity of time-binding—he binds time. It does not matter whether we
understand the very “essence” of the phenomenon or not, any more than we
understand the “essence” of electricity or any other “essence.” Life shows
that man has time-binding capacity as a natural gift and is naturally
impelled to use it. One of the best examples is procreation. Conception is
a completely incomprehensible phenomenon in its “essence,” nevertheless,
having the capacity to procreate we use it without bothering about its
“essence.” Indeed neither life nor science bothers about “essences”—they
leave “essences” to metaphysics, which is neither life nor science. It is
sufficient for our purpose that idealization is in fact a natural process
of time-binding human energy. And however imperfect ethics has been owing
to the prevalence of animal standards, such merits as our ethics has had
witness to the natural presence of “idealization” in time-binding human
life.
“It is thus evident that ideals are not things to gush over or to
sigh and sentimentalize about; they are not what would be left if
that which is hard in reality were taken away; ideals are
themselves the very flint of reality, beautiful no doubt and
precious, without which there would be neither dignity nor hope
nor light; but their aspect is not sentimental and soft; it is
hard, cold, intellectual, logical, austere. Idealization consists
in the conception or the intuition of ideals and in the pursuit of
them. And ideals, I have said, are of two kinds. Let us make the
distinction clearer. Every sort of human activity—shoeing horses,
abdominal surgery, or painting profiles—admits of a peculiar type
of excellence. No sort of activity can escape from its own type
but within its type it admits of indefinite improvement. For each
type there is an ideal—a dream of perfection—an unattainable limit
of an endless sequence of potential ameliorations within the type
and on its level. The dreams of such unattainable perfections are
as countless as the types of excellence to which they respectively
belong and they together constitute the familiar world of our
human ideals. To share in it—to feel the lure of perfection in one
or more types of excellence, however lowly—is to be human; not to
feel it is to be sub-human. But this common kind of idealization,
though it is very important and very precious, does not produce
the great events in the life of mankind. These are produced by the
kind of idealization that corresponds to what we have called in
the mathematical prototype, limit-begotten generalization—a kind
of idealization that is peculiar to creative genius and that, not
content to pursue ideals within established types of excellences,
creates new types thereof in science, in art, in philosophy, in
letters, in ethics, in education, in social order, in all the
fields and forms of the spiritual life of man.” (Quoted from the
manuscript of the forthcoming book, _Mathematical Philosophy_, by
Cassius J. Keyser.)
“Survival of the fittest” has a different form for different classes of
life. Applying animal standards to time-binding beings is like applying
inches to measuring weight. As a matter or fact, we cannot raise one class
to a higher class, unless we add an entirely new function to the former;
we can only improve their lower status; but if we apply the reverse
method, we can degrade human standards to animal standards.
Animal standards belong to a class of life whose capacity is _not_ an
_exponential_ function of _Time_. There is nothing theological or
sentimental in this fact; it is a purely mathematical truth.
It is fatal to apply the “survival of the fittest” theory in the same
sense to two radically different classes of life. The “survival of the
fittest” for animals—for _space_-binders—is survival _in space_, which
means fighting and other brutal forms of struggle; on the other hand,
“survival of the fittest” for human beings _as such_—that is, for
_time-binders_—is survival _in time_, which means intellectual or
spiritual competition, struggle for excellence, for making the _best_
survive. The-fittest-in-time—those who make the best survive—are those who
do the most in producing values for all mankind including _posterity_.
This is the scientific base for natural ethics, and ethics from which
there can be no side-stepping, or escape.
Therefore time-binders can not use “_animal_” logic without degrading
themselves from their proper status as human beings—their status as
established by nature. “Animal” logic leads to “animal” ethics and
“animal” economics; it leads inevitably to a brutalized industrial system
in which cunning contrives to rob the living of the fruit of the dead.
_Human_ logic points to human ethics and human economics; it will lead to
a humanized industrial system in which competition will be competition in
science, in art, in justice: a competition and struggle for the attainment
of excellence in human life. The time-binding capacity, which manifests
itself in drawing from the PAST, through the PRESENT for the FUTURE gives
human beings the means of attaining a precious kind of immortality; it
enables them to fulfill the law of their own class of life and to survive
everlastingly in the fruits of their toil, a perpetual blessing to endless
generations of the children of men. This is the truth we instinctively
recognize when we call a great man “immortal.” We mean that he has done
deeds that _survive in time_ for the perpetual weal of mankind.
Human logic—mathematical logic, the logic _natural_ for man—will thus show
us that “good” and “just” and “right” are to have their significance
defined and understood entirely in terms of human _nature_. Human
nature—not animal nature—is to be the basis and guide of Human
Engineering. Thus based and guided, Human Engineering will eliminate
“wild-cat schemers,” gamblers and “politicians.” It will put an end to
industrial violence, strikes, insurrections, war and revolutions.
The present system of social life is largely built upon misconceptions or
misrepresentations. For all work we need the human brain, the human
time-binding power, yet we continue to call it “hand-labor” and treat it
as such. Even in mechanical science, in the use of the term “horse-power,”
we are incorrect in this expression. How does this “horse” look in
reality? Let us analyse this “horse.” All science, all mechanical
appliances have been produced by “man” and man alone. Everything we
possess is the production of either dead men’s or living men’s work. The
enslavement of the solar man-power is purely a human invention in theory
and practice. Everything we have is evidently therefore a time-binding
product. What perfect nonsense to call a purely human achievement the
equivalent of so much “horse-power”! Of course it does not matter
mathematically what name we give to a unit of power; we may call it a Zeus
or a Zebra; but there is a very vicious implication in using the name of
an animal to denote a purely human product. Everything in our civilization
was produced by MAN; it seems only reasonable that this unit of power
which is the direct product of Man’s work, should be correctly named after
him. The educational effect would be wholesome and tremendous. The human
value in work would be thus emphasized again and again, and respect for
human work would be taught, from the beginning in the schools. This
“horse-power” unit causes us to forget the human part in it and it
degrades human work to the level of a commodity. This is an example of the
degrading influence of wrong conceptions and wrong language. I said
“educational” because even our subconscious mind is affected by this. (See
App. II.)
Human Engineering will not interfere with any scientific research; on the
contrary, it will promote it in many ways. Grown-ups, it is to be hoped,
will stop the nonsense of intermixing dimensions, for which we chastise
children. It is the same kind of blundering as when we intermix
phenomena—measuring “God” by human standards, or human beings by animal
standards. The relationship, if any, between these phenomena or the
overlapping of different classes, is interesting and important; but in
studying such relationships of classes, it is fatal to mix the classes;
for example, if we are studying the relations between surfaces and solids,
it is fatal to mistake solids for surfaces; just so, too, if we stupidly
confuse humans with animals.
In the reality of life, we are interested only in the values of the
function of the phenomena by themselves and to arrive at right conclusions
we have to use units appropriate to the phenomena. The intermixing of
units gives us a wrong conception of the values of each phenomenon; the
results of our calculations are wrong and the outcome is a misconception
of the process of human life. The fact once realized, we will cease
applying animal measures to man; even theology will abandon the monstrous
habit.
Animal units and standards are to be applied to animals, human standards
to man, “Divine” standards to “God.”
In the dark ages, with the complete innocence or misunderstanding of
science, the “why” of things was explained by the “who” of things; therein
investigation culminated; man was regarded as _homo sapiens_ and homo
sapiens = animal × spark of _super_natural; this monstrous formula was
accepted as a final truth—as an answer to the question: What is Man? This
type of answer became in the hands of church and state a powerful
instrument for keeping the people in subjection.
The tendency of the masses to let others think for them is not really a
_natural_ characteristic—quite the opposite. The habit of not thinking for
one’s self is the result of thousands of years of subjection. Those in
authority, in general, used their ingenuity to keep the people from
thinking. The most vital reason why many humans appear to be, and are
often called, “stupid,” is that they have been spoken to in a language of
speculation which they instinctively dislike and distrust; thus there
arose the proverb that speech was made to conceal the truth. It is no
wonder that they appear “stupid,” the wonder is that they are not more
“stupid.” The truth is that they will be found to be far less stupid when
addressed in the natural language of ascertainable fact. My whole theory
is based upon, and is in harmony with, the natural feelings of man. The
conceptions I introduce are based on human _nature_. Natural language—so
different from the speech of metaphysical speculation—will lead to mutual
understanding and the disappearance of warring factions.
“Discrimination, as the proverb rightly teaches, is the beginning
of mind. The first psychic product of that initial psychic act is
_numerical_: to discriminate is to produce _two_, the simplest
possible example of multiplicity. The discovery, or better the
invention, better still the production, best of all the creation,
of multiplicity with its correlate of number, is, therefore, the
most primitive achievement or manifestation of mind.... Let us,
then, trust the arithmetic instinct as fundamental and, for
instruments of thought that shall not fail, repair at once to the
domain of number.” (C. J. Keyser, Loc. Cit.)
The thinking few knew the power there is in “thinking”; they wanted to
have it and to keep the advantage of it for themselves; witness the late
introduction of public schools. Belief in the inferiority of the masses
became the unwritten law of the “privileged classes”; it was forced upon,
rubbed into, the subconscious mind of the masses by church and state
alike, and was humbly and dumbly accepted by the “lower orders” as their
“destiny.” Ignorance was proclaimed as a bliss.
As time went on, this “coefficient of ignorance” became so useful to some
people and some classes of people that no effort was spared to keep the
world in ignorance. It gave a legalistic excuse to imprison, burn and hang
people for expressing an opinion which the ruling classes did not like.
The elimination from church, from school, from universities, of any
teacher, any professor or any minister who dared to exemplify or encourage
fearless investigation and freedom of speech became very common. It is
less common in our generation, but there remains much to win in the way of
freedom.
Freedom, rightly understood, is the aim of Human Engineering. But freedom
is not license, it is not licentiousness. Freedom consists in _lawful_
living—in living in accord with the laws of human _nature_—in accord with
the _natural_ laws of Man. A plant is free when it is not prevented from
living and growing according to the natural laws of plant life; an animal
is free when it is not prevented from living according to the natural laws
of animal life; human beings are free when and only when they are not
prevented from living in accord with the natural laws of human life. I say
“when not prevented,” for human beings will live _naturally_ and,
therefore, in freedom, when they are not prevented from thus living by
ignorance of what human nature is and by artificial social systems
established, maintained, and protected by such ignorance. Human freedom
consists in exercising the time-binding energies of man in accordance with
the natural laws of such natural energies. Human freedom is thus the aim
of Human Engineering because Human Engineering is to be the science of
human nature and the art of conducting human affairs in accordance with
the laws of human nature. Survival of the fittest, where _fittest_ means
_strongest_, is a _natural_ law for brutes, for animals, for the class of
mere _space_-binders. Survival of the fittest, where _fittest_ means
_best_ in science and art and wisdom, is a _natural_ law for mankind, the
time-binding class of life.