But, though we cannot perform the task fully, our plight is far from hopeless. The World War has goaded us into thinking as we never thought before. It has constrained us to think of realities and especially to think of the supreme reality-the reality of Man. That is why the great Catastrophe marks the close of humanity"s childhood. The period has been long and the manner of its end is memorable forever-a sudden, flaming, world-wide cataclysmic demonstration of fundamental ignorance-human ignorance of human nature. It is just that tragic _demonstration_, brutal as an earthquake, pitiless as fate or famine, that gives us ground for future hope. It has forced us to think of realities and it is thought of reality that will heal the world. And so I say that these days, despite their fear and gloom, are the beginning of a new order in human affairs-the order of permanent peace and swift advancement of human weal.
For we know at length what human beings are, and the knowledge can be taught to men and women and children by home and school and church and press throughout the world; we know at length, and we can teach the world, that man is neither an animal nor a miraculous mixture of angel and beast; we know at length, and we can teach, that, throughout the centuries, these monstrous misconceptions have made countless millions mourn and that they are doing so to-day, for, though we cannot compute the _good_ of which they have _deprived_ mankind, we can trace the dark ramifications of their positive _evil_ in a thousand ways; we know at length, and we can teach, that man, though he is not an animal, is a natural being, having a definite place, a rank of his own, in the hierarchy of natural life; we know at length, and we can teach the world, that what is _characteristic_ of the human cla.s.s of life-that which makes us _human_-is the power to create material and spiritual wealth-to beget the light of reasoned understanding-to produce civilization-it is the unique capacity of man for binding time, uniting past, present and future in a _single growing reality_ charged at once with the surviving creations of the dead, with the productive labor of the living, with the rights and hopes of the yet unborn; we know at length, and we can teach, that the _natural_ rate of human progress is the rate of a swiftly increasing exponential function of time; we know, and we can teach, that what is good in _present_ civilization-all that is precious in it, sacred and holy-is the fruit of the time-binding toil struggling blindly through the ages against the perpetual barrier of human ignorance of human nature; we know at length, we can teach, and the world will understand, that in proportion as we rid our ethics and social philosophy of monstrous misrepresentations of human nature, the time-binding energies of humanity will advance civilization in accordance with their natural law _PR__T_, the forward-leaping function of time.
Such knowledge and such teaching will inaugurate the period of humanity"s manhood. It can be made an endless period of rapid developments in True civilization. All the developments must grow out of the true conception of human beings as const.i.tuting the time-binding cla.s.s of life, and so the work must begin with a campaign of education wide enough to embrace the world. The cooperation of all educational agencies-the home, the school, the church, the press-must be enlisted to make known the fundamental truth concerning the nature of man so that it shall become the guiding _light_ and _habit_ of men, women, and children everywhere. Gradual indeed but profound will be the transformations wrought in all the affairs of mankind, but especially and first of all in the so-called arts and sciences of ethics, economics, politics and government.
The ethics of humanity"s manhood will be neither "animal" ethics nor "_super_natural" ethics. It will be a natural ethics based upon a knowledge of the laws of human nature. It will not be a branch of zoology, the ethics of tooth and claw, the ethics of profiteering, the ethics of s.p.a.ce-binding beasts fighting for "a place in the sun." It will be a branch of humanology, a branch of Human Engineering; it will be a time-binding ethics, the ethics of the entirely natural civilization-producing energies of humanity. Whatever accords with the natural activity of those energies will be _right_ and _good_; whatever does not, will be _wrong_ and _bad_. "Survival of the fittest" in the sense of the _strongest_ is a s.p.a.ce-binding standard, the ethical standard of beasts; in the ethics of humanity"s manhood survival of the fittest will mean survival of the _best_ in compet.i.tions for excellence, and excellence will mean time-binding excellence-excellence in the production and right use of material and spiritual wealth-excellence in science, in art, in wisdom, in justice, in promoting the weal and protecting the rights both of the living and of the unborn. The ethics that arose in the dark period of humanity"s childhood from the conception of human beings as mysterious unions of animality and divinity gave birth to two repulsive species of traffic-traffic in men regarded as animals, fit to be slaves, and traffic in the "supernatural," in the sale of indulgences in one form or another and the "divine wisdom" of ignorant priests. It is needless to say that in the natural ethics of humanity"s manhood those species of commerce will not be found.
And what shall we say in particular of economics, of "industry," "business as usual," and the "finance" of "normalcy"? There lies before me an established handbook of _Corporation Finance_, by Mr. E. S. Mead, Ph.D.
(Appleton, N. Y.), whose purpose is not that of adverse criticism but is that of showing the generally accepted "sound" bases for prosperous business. I can hardly do better than to ask the reader to ponder a few extracts from that work, showing the established, and amazing theories, for then I have only to say that in the period of humanity"s manhood the moral blindness of such "principles," their s.p.a.ce-binding spirit of calculating selfishness and greed, will be regarded with utter loathing as slavery is regarded to-day. Behold the picture:
"Since the bondholder is solely interested in the security of his princ.i.p.al, and regular payment of his interest, and since both security and interest depend upon the permanence of income, other things being equal the companies with the most stable earnings or a market ... furnish the best security for bonds. Stability of earnings depends upon (1) the possession of a monopoly....
_Monopoly is exclusive or dominant control over a market. The more complete this control, the more valuable is the monopoly._ The advantage of monopoly lies in the fact that the prices of services or commodities are controlled by the producers (_meaning owners-Author_), rather than by the consumer.... Monopolies are of various origins. The most familiar are (1) franchises, the right to use _public property_ for _private purposes_, for example, the furnishing of light, water and transportation, (2) _control of sources of raw material_ ... , (3) patents, ... (4) high cost of duplicating plant.... In manufacturing industries, for example, those enterprises which _produce raw materials_ and the _necessities of life_ have a more stable demand.... Railroads furnish perhaps the best basis of bond issue because of the stability of the demand for the transportation service ... the high cost of duplicating the railroad plant, ... enables them to fix their rates on freight and pa.s.senger traffic.... The security of the creditors is here the profitableness of the business _which is carried on in the factory_. Furthermore, a business is not an aggregate of physical property but consists of physical property-buildings, boilers, machine tools-plus an industrial opportunity, plus the organization and ability to operate business." (Italics indicated by the author.)
There we see the animal standards in their studied perfection. Comment would be superfluous.
In the period of humanity"s manhood, the so-called "science" of economics, the "dismal science" of political economy, will become a genuine science based upon the laws of the time-binding energies of humanity; it will become the light of Human Engineering-promoter, guardian, and guide of human weal. For it will discover, and will teach that a _human_ life, a time-binding life, is not merely a _civilized_ life but a _civilizing_ life; it will know and will teach that a civilizing life is a life devoted to the production of potential and kinetic use-values-to the creation, that is, of material and spiritual wealth; it will know and will teach that wealth-both material and spiritual wealth-is a natural phenomenon-offspring of the marriage of Time and human Toil; it will know and will teach that the wealth in the world at any given moment is almost wholly the _inherited_ fruit of time and the labor of the dead; and so it will ask: To whom does the inheritance rightly belong? Does it of right belong to Smith and Brown? If so, _why_? Or does it of right belong to man-to humanity? If so, _why_? And what does "humanity" include? Only the living, who are relatively few? Or both the living and unborn? The Economics of humanity"s manhood will not only ask these questions but it will answer them and answer them aright. In seeking the answers, it will discover some obvious truths and many old words will acquire new meanings consistent with the time-binding nature of man. It will discover and will teach that the time-binders of a given generation are _posterity_ and _ancestry_ at once-posterity of the dead, ancestry of all the generations to come; it will discover and will teach that in this time-binding double relationship uniting past and future in a single living growing Reality, are to be found the obligations of time-binding ethics and the seat of its authority; economics will know and will teach that _human_ posterity-time-binding posterity-can not inherit the fruits of time and dead men"s toil _as animals inherit the wild fruits of the earth, to fight about them and to devour them_, but only as _trustees_ for the generations to come; it will know and will teach that "capitalistic" l.u.s.t to _keep_ for SELF and "proletarian" l.u.s.t to _get_ for SELF are both of them _s.p.a.ce-binding_ l.u.s.t-animal l.u.s.t-beneath the level of time-binding life.
The economics of humanity"s manhood will know and will teach that the characteristic energies of man as man are by _nature_ civilizing energies, wealth-producing energies, time-binding energies, the peaceful energies of inventive mind, of growing knowledge and understanding and skill and light; it will know and will teach that these energies of existing men united with one billion six hundred million available "sun-man" powers united with the ten billion living "man-powers of the dead," if they be not wasted by ignorance and selfishness, by conflict and compet.i.tion characteristic of beasts, are more than sufficient to produce a high order of increasing prosperity everywhere throughout the world; in the period of its manhood economics will discover and will teach that to produce world prosperity, cooperation-not the fighting of man against man-but the peaceful cooperation of all is both _necessary_ and sufficient; it will know and will teach that such cooperation demands _scientific_ leadership and a common _aim_; it will know, however, and will teach, for the lesson of Germany is plain, that scientific knowledge and a common aim are not alone sufficient; it will know and teach and all will understand that the common aim, the unifying principle, the basis of cooperation, cannot be the welfare of a family nor that of a province or a state or a race, but must be the welfare of _all_ mankind, the prosperity of humanity, the weal of the world-the peaceful production of Wealth without the destruction of War.
In humanity"s manhood, patriotism-the love of country-will not perish-far from it-it will grow to embrace the world, for your country and mine will be the world. Your "state" and mine will be the Human State-a Cooperative Commonwealth of Man-a democracy in fact and not merely in name. It will be a natural organic embodiment of the civilizing energies-the wealth-producing energies-characteristic of the human cla.s.s of life. Its larger affairs will be guided by the science and art of Human Engineering-not by ignorant and grafting "politicians"-but by scientific men, by honest men who _know_.
Is it a dream? It _is_ a dream, but the dream will come true. It is a scientific dream and science will make it a living reality.
How is the thing to be done? No one can foresee all the details, but in general outline the process is clear. Violence is to be avoided. There must be a period of transition-a period of adjustment. A natural first step would probably be the establishment of a new inst.i.tution which might be called a Dynamic Department-Department of Coordination or a Department of Cooperation-the name is of little importance, but it would be the _nucleus_ of the new civilization. Its functions would be those of encouraging, helping and protecting the people in such cooperative enterprises as agriculture, manufactures, finance, and distribution.
The Department of Cooperation should include various sections, which might be as follows:
(1) _The Section of Mathematical Sociology_ or _Humanology_: composed of at least one sociologist, one biologist, one mechanical engineer, and one mathematician. Their work would be the development of human engineering and mathematical sociology or humanology; promoting the progress of science; providing and supervising instruction in the theory of values and the rudiments of humanology for elementary schools and the public at large. _The members of the section would be selected by the appropriate scientific societies for a term fixed by the selectors._
(2) _The Section of Mathematical Legislation_: composed of (say) one lawyer, one mathematician, one mechanical engineer, selected as above.
Their task would be to recommend legislation, to provide means for eliminating "Legalism" from the theory and practice of law, and to bring jurisprudence into accord with the laws of time-binding human nature and the changing needs of human society. Their legislative proposals, if ratified in a joint session of sections (1) and (2), would then be recommended to the appropriate legislative bodies.
(3) _The Educational Section_: composed of two or three teachers, one sociologist, one mechanical engineer, one mathematician, selected as above. They would elaborate educational projects and revise school methods and books; their decisions being subject to the approval of the joint session of sections (1), (2), and (3).
(4) _The Cooperative Section_: composed of mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, production engineers, expert bookkeepers, accountants, business managers, lawyers and other specialists in their respective lines. This section would be an "Industrial Red Cross" (Charles Ferguson) giving expert advice when asked for by any cooperative society.
(5) _The Cooperative Banking Section_: composed of financial experts, sociologists, and mathematicians; its task being to help with expert advice new cooperative people"s banks.
(6) _The Promoters" Section_: composed of engineers whose duty would be to study all of the latest scientific facts, collect data, and elaborate plans. Those plans would be published, and no private person, but only cooperative societies, would be permitted by law to use them. The department would also study and give advice respecting the general conditions of the market and the needs in the various lines of production.
This section would regulate the duplication of production.
(7) _The Farming Section_: composed of specialists in scientific and cooperative agriculture.
(8) _The Foreign Section_: for inter-cooperative foreign relations.
(9) _The Commercial Section_.
(10) _The News Section_: to edit a large daily paper giving _true_, _uncolored_ news with a special supplement relating to progress in the work of Human Engineering. This paper would give daily news about the whole cooperative movement, markets, etc., etc.
All men selected to the places for this work should be the very best men in the nation. They should be well paid to enable them to give their full energy and time to their duties. All the selections for this work should be made in the same manner as mentioned above-through proven merits not clever oratory. Such appointments should be considered the highest honor that a country can offer to its citizens. Every selection should be a demonstration that the person selected was a person of the highest attainments in the field of his work.
The outline of this plan is vague; it aims merely at being suggestive. Its princ.i.p.al purpose is to accentuate the imperative necessity of establishing a national time-binding agency-a Dynamic Department for stimulating, guiding and guarding the civilizing energies, the wealth producing energies, the time-binding energies, in virtue of which human beings are human. For then and only then human welfare, unr.e.t.a.r.ded by monstrous misconceptions of human nature, by vicious ethics, vicious economics and vicious politics, will advance peacefully, continuously, and rapidly, under the leadership of human engineering, happily and without fear, in accord with the exponential law-the _natural_ law-of the time-binding energies of Man.
Chapter X. Conclusion
"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 Amba.s.sador 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 cert.i.tude that the old order has pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sions 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. Whoso 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 a.n.a.lysis of life phenomena elevates our point of view above pa.s.sion, above selfishness in any form, and, therefore, it is the only method which can tell us genuine truths about ourselves. Spinosa 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 pa.s.sions, 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 _s.p.a.ce_, _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.
Appendix I. Mathematics And Time-Binding
The purpose of this appendix is to give an expression of some new ideas which evolve directly out of the fact that humans are time-binders and which may serve as suggestions for the foundation of _scientific psychology_. The problem is of exceeding difficulty to give expression to in any form and therefore much more difficult to express in any exact or correct form, and so I beg the reader"s patience in regard to the language because some of the ideas are in themselves correct and sometimes very suggestive in spite of the language used. I am particularly interested that mathematicians, physicists and metaphysicians should read it carefully, forgive me the form, and look into the suggestions, because scientific psychology if such a science is to exist, would by necessity have to be a branch of physics. I particularly beg the mathematicians and physicists not to discard this appendix with too hasty a judgment of "Oh!
metaphysics," and also the metaphysicians not to do the same with an equally hasty judgment "Oh! mathematics." I hope that if this appendix is sympathetically understood, mathematicians and physicists will be moved to investigate the problem. If mathematicians and physicists would be more tolerant toward metaphysics and if metaphysicians would be moved to study mathematics, both would find tremendous fields to work in.
Some scientists are very pedantic and therefore intolerant in their pedantry and they may say "the fellow should learn first how to express himself and then ask our attention." My answer is that the problems involved are too pressing, too vital, too fundamental for humankind, to permit me to delay for perhaps long years before I shall be able to present the subject in a correct and satisfactory form, and also that the problems involved cover too vast a field for a single man to work it conclusively. It seems best to give the new ideas to the public in a suggestive form so that many people may be led to work on them more fully.
The old word "metaphysics" is an illegitimate child of ignorance and an unnecessary word in the scientific study of nature. Every phenomenon of nature can be cla.s.sed and studied in physics or chemistry or mathematics; the problem, therefore, is not in any way _super_natural or _super_physical, but belongs rather to an unknown or an undeveloped branch of physics. The problem, therefore, may be not that of some _new_ science, but rather that of a new branch of mathematics, or physics, or chemistry, etc., or all combined.