"In
Europe we know that an age is dying. Here it would be easy to miss
the signs of coming changes, but I have little doubt that it will
come. A realization of the aimlessness of life lived to labor
and to die, having achieved nothing but avoidance of starvation,
and the birth of children also doomed to the weary treadmill, has
seized the minds of millions."
Sir
Auckland Geddes, British Ambassador to the U. S. 1920.
IN conclusion let me say very briefly, as I said in the beginning,
that this little book has aimed to be only a sketch. The Problem
of Life is old. I have endeavored to approach it afresh, with
a new method, in a new spirit, from a new point of view. The
literature of the subject is vast. It displays great knowledge
and skill. Much of it is fitted to inform and to inspire such
as really read with a genuine desire to understand. Its weakness
is due to the absence of a true conception of what human beings
are. That is what I miss in it and it is that lack of fundamental
and central thought that I have striven to supply. If I have
succeeded in that, I have no fear-all else will follow quickly,
inevitably, as a matter of course. For a fundamental conception,
once it is formed and expressed, has a strange power-the power
of enlisting the thought and cooperation of many minds. And
no conception can have greater power in our human world than
a true conception of the nature of Man. For that most important
of truths the times are ripe; the world is filled with the saddest
of memories, with gloom, forebodings and fear. Without the truth
in this matter, there can be no rational hope-history must go
on in its dismal course; but with the truth, there is not only
hope but certitude that the old order has; passed and that humanity's
manhood dates from the present day. That I have here presented
the truth in this matter-the true conception of the human class
of life-I have personally no doubt; and I have no doubt that
that conception is to be the base, the guide, the source of
light, of a new civilization.. Whether I am mistaken or not,
time will decide. I feel as Buckle felt in writing his History
of Civilization:
"Whether
or not I have effected anything of real value . . . is a question
for competent judges to decide. Of this, at least, I feel certain,
that whatever imperfections may be observed, the fault consists,
not in the method proposed, but in the extreme difficulty of
any single man putting into full operation all the parts of
so vast a scheme. It is on this point, and on this alone, that
I feel the need of great indulgence. But, as to the plan itself,
I have no misgivings. Of defects in its execution I am not unconscious.
I can only plead the immensity of the subject, the shortness
of a single life and the imperfection of every single enterprise.
I, therefore, wish this work to be estimated, not according
to the finish of its separate parts, but according to the way
in which those parts have been fused into a complete and symmetrical
whole. This, in an undertaking of such novelty and magnitude,
I have a right to expect, and I would moreover, add, that if
the reader has met with opinions adverse to his own, he should
remember, that his views are, perhaps, the same as those which
I too once held, and which I have abandoned because, after a
wider range of study, I found them unsupported by solid proof,
subversive of the interest of Man, and fatal to the progress
of his knowledge. To examine the notions in which we have been
educated, and to turn aside from those which will not bear the
test, is a task so painful, that they who shrink from the sufferings
should pause before they reproach those by whom the suffering
is undergone.... Conclusions arrived at in this way are not
to be overturned by stating that they endanger some other conclusions;
nor can they be even affected by allegation against their supposed
tendency. The principles which I advocate are based upon distinct
arguments supported by well ascertained facts. The only points,
therefore, to be ascertained, are, whether the arguments are
fair, and whether the facts are certain. If these two conditions
have been obeyed, the principles follow by an inevitable inference."
And why have I
sought throughout to follow the spirit of mathematics? Because
I have been dealing with ideas and have desired, above all things
else, to be right and clear. Ideas have a character of their
own-they are right or wrong independently of our hopes and passions
and will. In the connection of ideas there is an unbreakable
thread of destiny. That is why in his Mathematical Philosophy
Professor Keyser has truly said:
"Mathematics
is the study of Fate-not fate in a physical sense, but in the
sense of the binding thread that connects thought with thought
and conclusions with their premises. Where, then, is our freedom?
What do you love? Painting, Poetry? Music? The muses are their
fates. Who so loves them is free. Logic is the muse of Thought."
No doubt mathematics
is truly impersonal in method; too impersonal maybe to please
the sentimentalists before they take the time to think; mathematical
analysis of life phenomena elevates our point of view above
passion, above selfishness in any form, and, therefore, it is
the only method which can tell us genuine truths about ourselves.
Spinoza even in the 17th Century had well realized this fact
and although imperfect in many ways, his was an effort in the
right direction and this quoted conclusion may well be a conclusion
for ourselves in the 20th century:
"The
truth might forever have remained hid from the human race, if
mathematics, which looks not to the final cause of figures,
but to their essential nature and the properties involved in
it, had not set another type of knowledge before them.... When
I turned my mind to this subject, I did not propose to myself
any novel or strange aim, but simply to demonstrate by certain
and indubitable reason, those things which agree best with practice.
And in order that I might enquire into the matters of the science
with the same freedom of mind with which we are wont to treat
lines and surfaces in mathematics; I determined not to laugh
or to weep over the actions of men, but simply to understand
them; and to contemplate their affections and passions, such
as love, hate, anger, envy, arrogance, pity and all other disturbances
of soul not as vices of human nature, but as properties pertaining
to it in the same way as heat, cold, storm, thunder pertain
to the nature of the atmosphere. For these, though troublesome,
are yet necessary, and have certain causes through which we
may come to understand them, and thus, by contemplating them
in their truth, gain for our minds much joy as by the knowledge
of things that are pleasing to the senses."
If only this little
book will initiate the scientific study of Man, I shall
be happy; for then we may confidently expect a science and art
that will know how to direct the energies of man to the advancement
of human weal.
What else ? Many
topics have not even been broached. Time-binding energy-what
may it not achieve in course of the aeons to come? What light
may it not yet throw upon such fundamental phenomena as Space,
Time, Infinity, and so on? What, if any, are the
limits of Time-binding? In it are somehow involved all the higher
functions of mind. Is Time identical with Intelligence ? Is
either of them the other's cause? Is Time in the Cosmos
or is the latter in the former? Is the Cosmos intelligent? Many
no doubt and marvelous are the fields which the scientific study
of man will open for research.
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