Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1283

carbon of a letter from Heath to Samuel Chugerman, 44 Butler Place, Brooklyn, New York NY,

October 30, 1939

 

Original is missing.

 

 

Dear Doctor Chugerman:

Because of your interest in the possibility of invoking the methods of the natural sciences for the analysis of social phenomena, I am inviting your atten­tion to the manner of approach suggested by the enclosed brief outline and formulations entitled “The Energy Concept of Population.”

Science seems to teach that nothing is static, that all phenomena are manifestations of change or time, and that all change, however intricate, and all time, con­sidered as change, is basically energy flow.

The life-year, as the unit of population, corresponds with the physical units in natural science in that it takes into account linear dimensions, mass and duration, as in the c.g.s. or the English system, although it takes these statistically of the population as the average of linear dimensions, average mass and the average duration of life for the individuals.

For statistical results, the average linear and mass dimensions of individuals in a population are taken as unity; the average duration is found from its vital statistics. Thus the single life-year may be taken as the unit of population, expressed in terms of energy, and the sum of the life years becomes the quantitative expres­sion, as in natural science, for the population as a whole.

Since numbers and duration are variable within a constant total, qualitative changes within the population and qualitative differences between two or more popula­tion groups having an equal number of life-years immediately appears, and these qualitative differences are mathemat­ically expressed.

Anticipating you will find this approach promising or at least interesting, I am calling it to your atten­tion as a promising key to the analysis (with respect to their functioning) of such important social institu­tions as private property, and especially private property in land. I am attempting some steps in that direction.

I am enormously interested in your new work on Ward.

Very truly yours,

Enc.

“The Energy Concept of Population” “Private Property in Land Explained”

“The Inspiration of Beauty”