Man has ever been the greatest puzzle to man. There are many and important
reasons for this fact. As the subject of this book is not a theoretical,
academic study of man, of which too many have already been written, I will
not recount the reasons, but will confine myself to the more pressing
matters of the task in hand, which is that of pointing the way to the
science and art of Human Engineering. The two facts which have to be dealt
with first, are the two which have most retarded human progress: (1) there
has never been a true definition of man nor a just conception of his rôle
in the curious drama of the world; in consequence of which there has never
been a proper principle or starting point for a science of humanity. It
has never been realized that man is a being of a dimension or type
different from that of animals and the characteristic nature of man has
not been understood; (2) man has always been regarded either as an animal
or as a supernatural phenomenon. The facts are that man is not
_super_natural but is literally a part of nature and that human beings are
not animals. We have seen that the animals are truly characterized by
their autonomous mobility—their space-binding capacity—animals are
space-binders. We have seen that human beings are characterized by their
creative power, by the power to make the past live in the present and the
present for the future, by their capacity to bind time—human beings are
time-binders. These concepts are basic and impersonal; arrived at
mathematically, they are mathematically correct.
It does not matter at all _how_ the first man, the first time-binder, was
produced; the fact remains that he was somewhere, somehow produced. To
know anything that is to-day of fundamental interest about man, we have to
analyse man in three coordinates—in three capacities; namely, his
chemistry, his activities in space, and especially his activities in time;
whereas in the study of animals we have to consider only two factors:
their chemistry and their activities in space.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account