Part 7 (1/2)
The great ma.s.s of the wealth of the world has been thus produced by generations that have gone. We know that the greatest wealth producers-immeasurably the greatest-have been and are scientific men, discoverers and inventors. If an invention, in the course of a few years after it is made, must become public property, then the wealth produced by the _use_ of the invention should also become public property in the course of a like period of years after it is thus produced. Against this proposition no sophistry can avail.
One of the greatest powers of modern times is the Press; it commands the resources of s.p.a.ce and time; it affects in a thousand subtle ways the form of our thoughts. It controls the exchange of news throughout the world.
Unfortunately the press is often controlled by exploiters of the ”living powers of the dead,” and so what is presented as news is frequently so limited, colored and distorted by selfish interests as to be falsehood in the guise of truth. Honest, independent papers are frequently starved by selfish conspirators and forced to close down. Thus the press, which is itself the product in the main of dead men's toil, is made a means for the deception and exploitation of the living. Indeed the bitter words of Voltaire seem to be too true: ”Since G.o.d created man in his own image, how often has man endeavored to render similar service to G.o.d.” Those who want to use such ”G.o.d-like” powers to rule the world are modern Neros, who in their wickedness and folly fancy themselves divine. To deceive, and through deception, to exploit, rob and subjugate living men and women, and to do it by prost.i.tuting the living powers created by the dead, is the work, I will not say of men, but of _mad_ men, greedy, ignorant and blind.
What is the remedy? Revolution? Revolution is also mad. The only remedy is enlightenment-knowledge, knowledge of nature, knowledge of human nature, scientific education, science applied to all the affairs of man-the science and art of Human Engineering.
Chapter VII. Survival of the Fittest
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 ”G.o.d-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 cla.s.s of life, without disaster.
The modern vast acc.u.mulation 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 ”s.p.a.ce-binders”-the members of the _animal_ world-are ”outside of the human law”-outside the natural laws for the human cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 const.i.tuting 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 cla.s.s a _naturally_ selfish cla.s.s 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 a.s.siduous 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, a.s.suming 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 a.n.a.lysing the functions of the different cla.s.ses of life, every cla.s.s 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 const.i.tute 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 ma.n.u.script of the forthcoming book, _Mathematical Philosophy_, by Ca.s.sius J. Keyser.)
”Survival of the fittest” has a different form for different cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s to a higher cla.s.s, 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 cla.s.s 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.