Spencer Heath Archive

Item 362..

A complete writing penciled on deteriorating notepad paper was transcribed October 10, 1945 with a notation that the original had been written a year or so earlier. Sometime subsequent to that, a new opening paragraph was added and five more paragraphs at the end, breaking off in mid-sentence. Following this is a somewhat different version which has not been compared carefully nor its origin found at this time. Perhaps a new version, taking the best from both, should be substituted for that now in “Heath’s Short Essays.”

About 1944

 

 

 

/MAN THE UNKNOWN/

 

     The foundations of war are laid in the periods called peace. Hated and feared, partly forgotten, its seeds are steadily sown. All wars are made and waged by governments. Governments, using their peoples as pawns, destroy governments and supersede them. Peoples, apart from governments, never wage wars. In the midst of wars their potencies and powers are crushed and bound, in the interludes their creative energies repressed. Government restricts all exchanges, reduces all employment, diminishes all values. It has no other way to live. Society is the organization of services; government the organization of force. Government as protection and services without coercion is yet to be born. Not in government but in society and its services rests the future salvation of mankind.

 

     Sired by the sun and out of the earth the generations of mankind are born——from earth their bodies, from the sun their life and powers. And these, his creators, are mild and kind. Only one price must he pay and he becomes no longer a creature but the creator of his world. He must open the eyes of his mind, seek only to know, to truly know, the world and all it holds and nature lays her scepter in his hand, her form and all her powers at his feet. Thus does he come to his inheritance of the earth, from creature to creator rise.

 

     Why, then must he suffer, fail and die instead of reign and rule? He comes to terms with nature but not with himself. In her hand are only blessings, on her lips no curse. Yet he lives in fear and hazard and is engulfed in wars.

 

     Until examined, known and understood, nature was only to be feared; she could not serve. None but the unknown powers and gods destroy. In this new age it is not nature but man himself who destroys——man the unknown, the last realm of nature still unexplored. Men are nature’s children and she has wrought into them the selfsame modes and laws as in her electrons, atoms, suns and stars. Attraction, repulsion; harmonic balance, dynamic symmetry, enduring motion and modes. Yet among men these universals are but little examined, even denied to exist. Hence they are little known and greatly feared.

 

     Yet they do, measurably, serve, just as unknown nature did in small measure serve and bless mankind. Just as she did smile between her frowns of stress and storm while still unknown, so in the institutions of men does she secretly serve. Civilizations are her smiles. Governments, empires and wars are her frowns. And today men grovel under these as in their blindness once they bowed before all the powers of nature that they had not learned to tame and use.

     Nature is self-evolving. Relative chaos constantly unfolds in forms and modes of higher order and enduring forms. Not through the burnings and yearnings of his heart but only through the eyes of his impersonal mind does man and, through him, mankind, nobly and as creator, participate in this. In his darkness of mind he is but a creature, driven or wafted to none but accidental goals. His preoccupation is with the darkness and chaos of his world and not the preponderant light and life that awaits only the opening of his purblind eyes. In this new estate blind reactions transmute to keen perceptions, sciences arise, and he steps forth creator who was erstwhile slave.

 

     Such has been the conquest of spirit and mind over the non-human, the so-called natural world. And such are the greater conquests that in the world of men await only the enlightenment of minds.

                                         /The preceding was much edited.                                        Here begins the newly added                                            material:/

 

In the poetry of the genesis of the world, the first act of creation was the separation of the light from the darkness; so, the first act of the creative genius of man is to see the light and that it is good and then to divide the light from the darkness. Even as the poet-philosopher of old proclaimed, “He shall be as a god to me who can rightly define and divide.”

 

     In the modern sciences of the non-human world——the sciences whose technology is creative power, however used——this prime separation of light from darkness has been between function and failure, process and chaos. There is no light in chaos; only the processes of the world have been the con­cern and the subject-matter of science. Only these could be learned and then, in turn, directed and performed.

 

So it must be in the world, the social organizations, of mankind. Their light must be separated from darkness, their order must be defined and distinguished from disorder, pro­cess from chaos. For only their processes can be intelligently grasped and then creatively and not fortuitously performed.

 

     The social order does not consist of disorder. Nor can there be alternative kinds of order; only the kind of order that is appropriate to the particular field. It is the order and succession of events whereby the structure of the system——be it atoms, cells or stars——is maintained, the functions lacking which it is defunct.

 

The social organization has a function that no other organism has. All other creatures, all lesser groups, vie for food, bear seeds, reproduce and die. Man himself, when only in families, clans or tribes, can do no more. But the social organism, transcending tribes, is no longer creature but creator. By its settled habitat and each thereby serving many or all, without prejudice as to other relationship, it creates food more than it destroys. It slowly but truly creates a new and renewing world and thereby lengthens its generations of men and achieves an indefinite continuity of its own. Not long since it emerged from nomadism and merely tribal bonds. Hence its functioning is only partial and incomplete. But it is the light of the world, the proceeding and functioning

                                                       /Breaks off here/

 

 

­­­­­­­­­­­­­____________________________________

 

In periods of peace are laid the foundations of war. It is feared and hated while its seeds are sown. The potencies and powers of men between the wars are crushed and bound, their energies repressed. These become fear and hate. They stress and strain all free relationships until they at last explode in war.

Sired by the sun and out of the earth the generations of mankind are born. F

From earth their bodies; from the sun their life and powers. And these, his creators, are mild and kind. Only one price must he pay and he becomes no longer a creature but the creator of his world. He must open the eyes of his mind, seek only to know, to truly know, the world and all it holds, and nature lays her scepter in his hand, her form and all her powers at his feet. Thus does he come to his inheritance of the earth, from creature to creator rise.

Why, then, must he suffer, fail and die instead of reign and rule? He comes to terms with nature but not with himself. In her hand are only blessings, on her lips no curse. Yet he lives in fear and hazard and is engulfed in wars. Until examined, known and understood, nature was only to be feared; she could not serve. Only the unknown gods destroy. In this new age it is not Nature but man himself who destroys. Man the unknown—the last realm of nature still unexplored. She has laid her kingdom at his feet, her scepter in his hand. Men are her children and she has wrought into them her self-same laws as in her electrons, atoms, suns and stars—attraction, repulsion, harmonic balance, dynamic symmetry, enduring motions and modes. But these, among men, are but little examined, hence little known and greatly feared. Yet they do, measurably, serve. Just as unknown nature did, in small measure, serve and bless mankind, just as she did smile between her frowns of stress and storm while still unknown, so in the institutions of men does she secretly serve. Civilizations are her smiles. Governments, empires and wars are her frowns. And today men grovel under these as in their blindness once they bowed before all the powers of nature that they had not then learned to tame and use.

Nature is self-evolving. Relative chaos constantly

unfolds in forms and modes of higher order and more enduring

beauty. Not through the burnings and yearnings of his heart

but only through the eyes of his impersonal mind does man,

and through him mankind, nobly and as creator participate in

this. In his darkness of mind he is but a creature, driven

or wafted to none but accidental goals. His preoccupation

is with the darkness and chaos of his world and not with the

preponderant light and life that awaits only the awakening

of his purblind eyes. In this new estate blind reactions transmute to keen perceptions, sciences arise, and he steps forth creator who was erstwhile slave. Such has been the conquest of spirit and mind over the non-human, the so-called natural world. And such are the greater conquests that in the world of men await only the enlightenment of minds.

In the poetry of the genesis of the world, the first act of creation was the separation of the light from the darkness; so, the first act of the creative genius of man is to see the light and that it is good and then to divide the light from the darkness. Even as the poet-philosopher of old proclaimed, “He shall be as a god to me who can rightly define and divide.”

In the modern sciences of the non-human world—the sciences whose technology is creative power, however used— this prime separation of light from darkness has been between function and failure, process and chaos. There is no light in chaos; only the processes of the world have been the con­cern and the subject-matter of science. Only these could be learned and then, in turn, directed and performed.

So it must be in the world, the social organizations, of mankind. Their light must be separated from darkness, their order must be defined and distinguished from disorder, pro­cess from chaos. For only their processes can be intelligently grasped and then creatively and not fortuitously performed.

The social order does not consist of disorder. Nor can there be alternative kinds of order; only the kind of order that is appropriate to the particular field. It is the order and succession of events whereby the structure of the system—be it atoms, cells or stars—is maintained; the functions lacking which it is defunct.

The social organization has a function that no other organism has. All other creatures, all lesser groups, vie for food, bear seeds, reproduce and die. Man himself, when only in families, clans or tribes, can do no more. But the social organism, transcending tribes, is no longer creature but creator. By its settled habitat and each thereby serving many or all, without prejudice as to other relationship, it creates food more than it destroys. It slowly but truly creates a new and renewing world and thereby lengthens its generations of men and achieves an indefinite continuity of its own. Not long since it emerged from nomadism and merely tribal bonds. Hence its functioning is only partial and incomplete. But it is the light of the world, the proceeding and functioning