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" A1 (alpha
1) , the second one A2 (alpha 2) , the third
one A3 (alpha 3), we may suppose that a genius
appears who has the faculty to surpass all the other relative
truths A1, A2, A3,
. . . An, and gives us an absolute or final
truth, VALID IN INFINITY (A) 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" (A1); a Bolshevik would say
"My color" (A2); a color-blind person would
say "such a thing does not exist" (A3); a
Daltonist would say "that is green" (A4);
a metaphysician would say "that is the soul of whiskey" (A5);
an historian would say "that is the color of the ink with which
human history has been written" (A6); an uneducated
person would say "that is the color of blood" (A7);
the modern scientist would say "it is the light of such and
such wave length" (An). 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 reflections
of the phenomenon, reflected in our midst as in a mirror;
the reflections may be distorted, as in a convex or concave
mirror, but they suggest an ideal reflection 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 REPRESENTATIONS
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 nonliving 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 nonspecific 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.
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.*
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.