Whether we be capitalists or socialists or neither, we must learn that to
prey upon the treasury left by the dead is to live, not the life of a
human being, but that of a _ghoul_. Legalistic title—documentary
ownership—does not alter the fact. Neither does lust for the same.
When we have acquired the just conception of what a human being is we
shall get away from the Roman conception according to which a human being
is _instrumentum vocale_; an animal, _instrumentum semivocale_: and a
tool, _instrumentum mutum_. To regard human beings as tools—as
instruments—for the use of other human beings is not only unscientific but
it is repugnant, stupid and short sighted. Tools are made by man but have
not the autonomy of their maker—they have not man’s time-binding capacity
for initiation, for self-direction, and self-improvement In their own
nature, tools, instruments, machines belong to a dimension far lower than
that of man.
Talk of dimensions or dimensionality is by no means theoretical rubbish.
The right understanding of dimensions is of life-and-death importance in
practical life. The intermixing of dimensions leads to wrong conclusions
in our thought and wrong conclusions lead to disasters.
Consider the classes of life as representing three dimensions (as
explained in an earlier chapter), then human production belongs
essentially to the human or as I call it the third dimension. With the
base of (say) 5, we produce in the third dimension a result of 125 units,
and so when humans are paid but 25 units in accordance with the standards
of the second dimension (that of animals), humanity is deprived of the
benefit of 100 units of produced wealth. That is an illustration of what a
part dimensions play in practical life. The reflective reader may analyse
for himself what effect these same rules would have, if expressed and
applied in the human “time-binding” dimension, time being the supreme
test. The following table gives the visual shock:
1st Dimension 2nd Dimension 3rd Dimension
5 25 125
10 100 1,000
100 10,000 1,000,000
1,000 1,000,000 1,000,000,000
This explains why the intermixing of dimensions is the source of
tremendous evil.
Who can now assert that the problem of dimensions is one only of theory?
It is not even a question of limitation of mind, but it becomes a question
of limitation of eyesight, not to be able to see the overwhelming
differences between the laws of development of the first, second, and the
third dimension.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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