Manhood of Humanity Quotes

“Definitions create conditions.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“There is every reason why the standards in our civilization are so low, because we have "poisoned," in a literal sense of the word, our minds with the physico-chemical effects of wrong ideas.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“Those ignorant "masters of our destinies" who regard humans as animals or as monstrous hybrids of natural and supernatural must be dethroned by scientific education.

Humans can be literally poisoned by false ideas and false teachings. Many people have a just horror at the thought of putting poison into tea or coffee, but seem unable to realize that, when they teach false ideas and false doctrines, they are poisoning the time-binding capacity of their fellow men and women. One has to stop and think!”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“Law was always made by the few and in general for the purpose of preserving the "existing order," or for the reestablishment of the old order and the punishment of the offenders against it.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“What is history? What is its significance for humanity? Dr. J. H. Robinson gives us a precise answer: "Man's abject dependence on the past gives rise to the continuity of history. Our convictions, opinions, prejudices, intellectual tastes; our knowledge, our methods of learning and of applying for information we owe, with slight exceptions, to the past-often to the remote past. History is an expansion of memory, and like memory it alone can explain the present and in this lies its most unmistakable value.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“If those who know why and how neglect to act, those who do not know will act, and the world will continue to flounder.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“If we analyse the classes of life, we readily find that there are three cardinal classes which are radically distinct in function. A short analysis will disclose to us that, though minerals have various activities, they are not "living." The plants have a very definite and well known function-the transformation of solar energy into organic chemical energy. They are a class of life which appropriates one kind of energy, converts it into another kind and stores it up; in that sense they are a kind of storage battery for the solar energy; and so I define THE PLANTS AS THE CHEMISTRY-BINDING class of life.

The animals use the highly dynamic products of the chemistry-binding class-the plants-as food, and those products-the results of plant-transformation-undergo in animals a further transformation into yet higher forms; and the animals are correspondingly a more dynamic class of life; their energy is kinetic; they have a remarkable freedom and power which the plants do not possess-I mean the freedom and faculty to move about in space; and so I define ANIMALS AS THE SPACE-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE.

And now what shall we say of human beings? What is to be our definition of Man? Like the animals, human beings do indeed possess the space-binding capacity but, over and above that, human beings possess a most remarkable capacity which is entirely peculiar to them-I mean the capacity to summarise, digest and appropriate the labors and experiences of the past; I mean the capacity to use the fruits of past labors and experiences as intellectual or spiritual capital for developments in the present; I mean the capacity to employ as instruments of increasing power the accumulated achievements of the all-precious lives of the past generations spent in trial and error, trial and success; I mean the capacity of human beings to conduct their lives in the ever increasing light of inherited wisdom; I mean the capacity in virtue of which man is at once the heritor of the by-gone ages and the trustee of posterity. And because humanity is just this magnificent natural agency by which the past lives in the present and the present for the future, I define HUMANITY, in the universal tongue of mathematics and mechanics, to be the TIME-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“Survival of the fittest" in the commonly used animal sense is not a theory or principle for a "time-binding" being. This theory is only for the physical bodies of animals; its effect upon humanity is sinister and degrading. We see the principle at work all about us in criminal exploitation and profiteering. As a matter of fact, the ages-long application of this animal principle to human affairs has degraded the whole human morale in an inconceivably far-reaching way. Personal greed and selfishness are brazenly owned as principles of conduct. We shrug our shoulders in acquiescence and proclaim greed and selfishness to be the very core of human nature, take it all for granted, and let it pass at that. We have gone so far in our degradation that the prophet of capitalistic principles, Adam Smith, in his famous Wealth of Nations, arrives at the laws of wealth, not from the phenomena of wealth nor from statistical statements, but from the phenomena of selfishness-a fact which shows how far-reaching in its dire influence upon all humanity is the theory that human beings are "animals." Of course the effect is very disastrous. The preceding chapters have shown that the theory is false; it is false, not only because of its unhappy effects, but it belies the characteristic nature of man. Human nature, this time-binding power, not only has the peculiar capacity for perpetual progress, but it has, over and above all animal propensities, certain qualities constituting it a distinctive dimension or type of life. Not only our whole collective life proves a love for higher ideals, but even our dead give us the rich heritage, material and spiritual, of all their toils. There is nothing mystical about it; to call SUCH a class a naturally selfish class is not only nonsensical but monstrous.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“Indeed neither life nor science bothers about "essences"-they leave "essences" to metaphysics, which is neither life nor science.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“to treat a human being as an animal - as a mere space-binder - because humans have certain animal propensities, is an error of the same type and grossness as to treat a cube as a surface because it has surface properties.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“Philosophy, as defined by Fichte, is the "science of sciences." Its aim was to solve the problems of the world. In the past, when all exact sciences were in their infancy, philosophy had to be purely speculative, with little or no regard to realities. But if we regard philosophy as a Mother science, divided into many branches, we find that those branches have grown so large and various, that the Mother science looks like a hen with her little ducklings paddling in a pond, far beyond her reach; she is unable to follow her growing hatchlings. In the meantime, the progress of life and science goes on, irrespective of the cackling of metaphysics. Philosophy does not fulfill her initial aim to bring the results of experimental and exact sciences together and to solve world problems. Through endless, scientific specialization scientific branches multiply, and for want of coordination the great world-problems suffer. This failure of philosophy to fulfill her boasted mission of scientific coordination is responsible for the chaos in the world of general thought. The world has no collective or organized higher ideals and aims, nor even fixed general purposes. Life is an accidental game of private or collective ambitions and greeds.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“Dogmatic theology is, by its very nature, unchangeable. The same can be said in regard to the spirit of the law. Law was and is to protect the past and present status of society and, by its very essence, must be very conservative, if not reactionary. Theology and law are both of them static by their nature.

Philosophy, law and ethics, to be effective in a dynamic world must be dynamic; they must be made vital enough to keep pace with the progress of life and science. In recent civilization ethics, because controlled by theology and law, which are static, could not duly influence the dynamic, revolutionary progress of technic and the steadily changing conditions of life; and so we witness a tremendous downfall of morals in politics and business. Life progresses faster than our ideas, and so medieval ideas, methods and judgments are constantly applied to the conditions and problems of modern life. This discrepancy between facts and ideas is greatly responsible for the dividing of modern society into different warring classes, which do not understand each other. Medieval legalism and medieval morals- the basis of the old social structure-being by their nature conservative, reactionary, opposed to change, and thus becoming more and more unable to support the mighty social burden of the modern world, must be adjudged responsible in a large measure for the circumstances which made the World War inevitable.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“Philosophy in its old form could exist only in the absence of engineering, but with engineering in existence and daily more active and far reaching, the old verbalistic philosophy and metaphysics have lost their reason to exist. They were no more able to understand the "production" of the universe and life than they are now able to understand or grapple with "production" as a means to provide a happier existence for humanity. They failed because their venerated method of "speculation" can not produce, and its place must be taken by mathematical thinking. Mathematical reasoning is displacing metaphysical reasoning. Engineering is driving verbalistic philosophy out of existence and humanity gains decidedly thereby. Only a few parasites and "speculators" will mourn the disappearance of their old companion "speculation." The world of producers -the predominating majority of human beings- will welcome a philosophy of ordered thought and production.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“There are two ways to slide easily through life: Namely, to believe everything, or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking. The majority take the line of least resistance, preferring to have their thinking done for them; they accept ready-made individual, private doctrines as their own and follow them more or less blindly. Every generation looks upon its own creeds as true and permanent and has a mingled smile of pity and contempt for the prejudices of the past. For two hundred or more generations of our historical past this attitude has been repeated two hundred or more times, and unless we are very careful our children will have the same attitude toward us.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“For the layman, as well as for the majority of the physicists in their less sober, or metaphysical, moments, 'space' is 'emotionally' newtonian and an 'absolute void', which, of course, being 'absolute nothingness', cannot have objective existence, by definition. For Einstein, 'space-time' is, semantically, 'fulness', not 'emptiness', and, in his language, he does not need any term like 'ether', as his 'plenum', structurally, covers the ground, without his committing himself to a definite two-valued mechanistic ether. The confusion of orders of abstractions, from which we all suffer, is semantic, and is due to disregard of the structure and role of language. If we accept a non-el language of space-time, structurally we deal with fulness, and we should not use the term 'space', as its old semantic implications are 'emptiness', and so are very confusing. The 'sensation' of Einstein's declaration amounts to the fact that the sub-microscopic fulness ('space') is more important than a few kinks or concentrations of that fulness ('matter'), - a fact which science has established, and which is quite obvious.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“...no thought, if it be non-mathematical in spirit, can be trusted, and, although mathematicians sometimes make mistakes, the spirit of mathematics is always right and always sound.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“The energy of a body which is due to its position, is called potential energy. The energy of a body which is due to its motion, is called kinetic energy.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“For this reason, it is useless to argue who is the more important, the capitalist who has legal possession of most of the material fruit of dead men's toil, or the laborer who has legal possession of but little of it. In the laborer, we do not now really look for his physical muscular labor alone; for this is replaced by mechanical or animal power as soon as [pg 108] it can be. What we do need from labor, and what we will always need, is his brain—his time-binding power.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“It is obvious that the “unit”—inch—has no value by itself, but is very precious as a unit for measuring the phenomenon of length, which it perfectly represents, and that is why it was introduced.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“The world to-day is full of controversy about wealth, capital, and money, and because humanity, through its peculiar time-binding power, binds this element “time” in an ever larger and larger degree, the controversy becomes more and more acute. Civilization as a process is the process of binding time; progress is made by the fact that each generation adds to the material and spiritual wealth which it inherits. Past achievements—the fruit of bygone time—thus live in the present, are augmented in the present, and transmitted to the future; the process goes on; time, the essential element, is so involved that, though it increases arithmetically, its fruit, civilization, advances geometrically.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“In political economy the meagreness of our understanding is especially remarkable; we have not yet grasped the obvious fact—a fact of immeasurable import for all of the social sciences—that with little exception the wealth and capital possessed by a given generation are not produced by its own toil but are the inherited fruit of dead men's toil—a free gift of the past. We have yet to learn and apply the lesson that not only our material wealth and capital but our science and art and learning and wisdom—all that goes to constitute our civilization—were produced, not by our own labor, but by the time-binding energies of past generations.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“The secret of philosophy, said Leibnitz, is to treat familiar things as unfamiliar. By the secret of “philosophy” Leibnitz meant the secret of what we call science. Let us apply this wholesome maxim in [pg 099] our present study; let us, in so far as we can, regard the familiar terms—wealth, capital and money—as unfamiliar; let us deal with them afresh; let us examine openmindedly the facts—the phenomena—to which the terms relate and ascertain scientifically the significance the terms must have in a genuine science of human economy. Examine “the facts” I say—examine “the phenomena”—for bending facts to theories is a vital danger, while bending theories to facts is essential to science and the peaceful progress of society.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“The difficulty is not merely that of destroying old ideas that are false; it is not merely that of replacing them with true ideas that are new; it is that of causing people habitually to associate meanings that are new and true with terms associated so long, so universally, so uniformly with meanings that are false.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“The question is of utmost importance both theoretically and practically, for the law—whatever it be—is a natural law—a law of human nature—a law of the time-binding energy of man. What is the law? We have already noted the law of arithmetical progression and the law of geometric progression; we have seen the immense difference between them; and we have seen that the natural law of human progress in each and every cardinal matter is a law like that of a rapidly increasing geometric progression. In other words, the natural law of human progress—the natural law of amelioration in human affairs—the fundamental law of human nature—the basic law of the time-binding energy [pg 090] peculiar to man—is a Logarithmic law—a law of logarithmic increase. I beg the reader not to let the term bewilder him but to make it his own. It is easy to understand; and its significance is mighty and everlasting. Even its mathematical formulation can be understood by boys and girls. Let us see how the formulation looks.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“Energy, we have noted, is the capacity to do work. In human economy work may be (1) useful or (2) neutral or (3) harmful. These words have no significance except in human economy. The energy of the human intellect is a time-binding energy, for it is able to direct, to use, to transform other energies. This time-binding energy is of higher rank—of higher dimensionality—than the other natural energies which it directs, controls, uses, and transforms. [pg 089] This higher energy—which is commonly called the mental or spiritual power of man—is time-binding because it makes past achievements live in the present and present activities in time-to-come. It is an energy that initiates; it is an energy that creates; it is an energy that can understand the past and foretell the future—it is both historian and prophet; it is an energy that loads abstract time—the vehicle of events—with an ever-increasing burden of intellectual achievements, of spiritual wealth, destined for the civilization of posterity. And what is the natural law of the increase? What is the natural law of human advancements in all great matters of human concern?”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“But here the problem becomes more complicated; for the stone, the plant and the animal do not possess the intellectual power to create and initiate and so must blindly obey the laws that are natural for them; they are not free to determine their own destinies. Not so with man; man has the capacity and he [pg 086] can, through ignorance or neglect or mal-intent, deviate from, or misinterpret, the natural laws for the human class of life. Just therein lies the secret and the source of human chaos and woe—a fact of such tremendous importance that it cannot be over-emphasized and it seems impossible to evade it longer. To discover the nature of Man and the laws of that nature, marks the summit of human enterprises. For to solve this problem is to open the way to everything which can be of importance to humanity—to human welfare and happiness.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“It must not be lost sight of in this connection that the human class of life is a part and a product of nature, and that, therefore, there must be fundamental laws which are natural for this class of life. A stone obeys the natural laws of stones; a liquid conforms to the natural law of liquids; a plant, to the natural laws of plants; an animal, to the natural laws of animals; it follows inevitably that there must be natural laws for humans.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“All foods which the animals as well as the humans use are, already, the result of the solar energy transformed into what may be called chemical energy. Transformation of energies is building up of life.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“This era is essentially an industrial era. To produce we have to have: (1) raw material or soil; (2) instruments for production—tools and machines; and (3) the application of power.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding

“Money is not the wealth of a nation, but production is wealth; so ordered production is the main object for humanity. But to have the maximum of production, it is necessary to have production put on a sound basis. No mere preaching of brotherly love, or class hatred, will produce one single brick for the building of the future temple of human victory—the temple of human civilization. Ordered production demands analysis of basic facts.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: Enriched edition. Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding