60 Civilization
Everything which serves the social progress of mankind is appropriately called civilization or culture, and the objective characteristic of progress consists in improved methods for seizing and utilizing the raw energies of nature for human purposes. Thus it was a cultural act when a primitive man discovered that he could extend the radius of his muscle energy by taking a pole in his hand, and it was another cultural act when a primitive man discovered that by throwing a stone he could send his muscle energy a distance of many meters to the desired point. The effect of the knife, the spear, the arrow, and of all the other primitive implements can be called in each case a purposive transformation of energy. And at the other end of the scale of civilization the most abstract scientific discovery, by reason of its generalization and simplification, signifies a corresponding economy of energy for all the coming generations that may have anything to do with the matter. Thus, in fact, the concept of progress as here defined embraces the entire sweep of human endeavor for perfection, or the entire field of culture, and at the same time it shows the great scientific value of the concept of energy.
If we consider further that, according to the second fundamental principle, the free energy accessible to us can only decrease, but not increase, while the number of men whose existence depends directly on the consumption of a due amount of free energy is constantly on the increase, then we at once see the objective necessity of the development of civilization in that sense. His foresight puts man in a position to act culturally. But if we examine our present social order from this point of view, we realize with horror how barbarous it still is. Not only do murder and war destroy cultural values without substituting others in their place, not only do the countless conflicts which take place between the different nations and political organizations act anticulturally, but so do also the conflicts between the various social classes of one nation, for they destroy quantities of free energy which are thus withdrawn from the total of real cultural values. At present mankind is in a state of development in which progress depends much less upon the leadership of a few distinguished individuals than upon the collective labor of all workers. Proof of this is that it is coming to be more and more the fact that the great scientific discoveries are made simultaneously by a number of independent investigators—an indication that society creates in several places the individual conditions requisite for such discoveries. Thus we are living at a time when men are gradually approximating one another very closely in their natures, and when the social organization therefore demands and strives for as thorough an equalization as possible in the conditions of existence of all men.
Footnotes
A Sometimes on suddenly awaking from a profound sleep a person finds himself for the moment deprived of his personal stock of memories, unable to recall where and in what circumstances he is. No one who has experienced such a condition can ever forget the terrifying sense of helplessness it brings.
B More precisely, a very pale blue.
C It cannot be objected that inorganic nature also is known to be subject to the law of causation. The causal mode of regarding inorganic phenomena is a distinctly human one, and nothing justifies the assertion that the same phenomena cannot be viewed in an entirely different manner.
D Mathematicians who busy themselves a great deal with the formal theory of four-dimensional space, seem to acquire a capacity for imagining this form as easily as the three-dimensional form with which we are all familiar. Therefore, despite the oft-repeated statements to the contrary, it is not impossible to imagine four-dimensional space. Only, we must not attempt to represent to ourselves four-dimensional space in three-dimensional space, especially not without a knowledge of its properties.
E The usual designation of the larger groups, ten, hundred, thousand, million, billion, etc., is also quite irrational. If it is our object to secure expressions for place values in as few words as possible, we find that the numbers of the form 102n, in which n is a whole number, must receive their own names, that is, 10, 100, 10,000, 100,000,000 etc. In this way the problem of designating as many numbers as possible by as few words as possible is solved.
F It is not difficult to perfect musical notation with a view to unambiguity, a thing which would greatly facilitate the study of music.
G For the sake of the layman it must be observed that those “quantities” are not energy magnitudes but factors of the electrical and magnetic energies. Energy itself in its various forms is an exclusively positive magnitude, and the result of the additions of their various amounts is always the sum, never the difference, of their numerical values. By the negative sign is understood the energy expended in contradistinction to the energy received. It is therefore nothing more than the indication of a mathematical operation.
H Lately changes of elements into one another have been observed in individual instances, but in such peculiar circumstances that for the present we need not consider these discoveries, which have only just begun.
I At the present time “Ido” is the best. It is a highly practicable artificial language, and its advocates have succeeded in organizing it to insure its normal development. An older and still rather widespread form called “Esperanto” has failed to organize itself so as to insure its development and it must inevitably die out.