Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1358

Carbon of a letter from Heath to Leon Sachs, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

February 22, 1941

 

 

 

Dear Doctor Sachs:

 

     Several persons in speaking to me have referred to you as a person interested in the development of thinking and of new ideas giving promise of general and public affairs and scientific importance.

 

     In my travels between my home in Elkridge, Maryland and here in New York, I have a number of times promised myself the pleasure of meeting you either directly or through some kind intermediation at the University or elsewhere. Since I am here in New York to remain for the next week or ten days, I am taking the liberty of dropping you a line and enclosing therewith several small publications of my own in which I trust you will receive a sincere and not altogether unsuccessful effort to mark out the psychological conditions and social instrumentalities upon which the rational progress of mankind has been made through service and exchange relationships, and upon which it seems that all future advancement must depend. I have prepared these five little publications in the order of their genesis one from another.

    The first, “The Inspiration of Beauty,” is an attempt to differentiate out of the whole world of feeling those psychological states under which alone it appears that truly constructive thinking and activities can proceed.

The second, “The Energy Concept of Population,” is a very elementary attempt to establish a quantitative unit for the measurement of population as energy, and thus open the door to scientific treatment and mathematical analysis of social phenomena. It seems well worthy of note that the qualitative aspect of energy in any given quantity seems strikingly to arise out of the manner in which the mass and velocity elements are organized in the energy stream.

 

     My friend, Crane Brinton, has recognized this Energy Concept as a “most promising” approach to and mode of social analysis.

 

     In the third, “Private Property in Land Explained,” the above mode of social analysis is applied to a specific and fundamental social institution. You will observe that the Energy Concept is implicit in the analysis although not specifically referred to therein.

     It is the general rule that the successful scienti­fic analysis of any phenomena suggests some practical or engineering technique that can be serviceably employed in that field. With reference to the functional analysis of property in land, a practical technique for the further utilization of this institution in the sound development of social organization is proposed in the last two pam­phlets under the general title, “Real Estate, How to Raise and Restore Its Income and Value.”

     I am sending this little argosy of ideas out upon the waters of your imagination wondering what friendly sails it may speak, and thinking it may form the basis of plea­sant conversation when I have, as I hope, the opportunity of making your acquaintance.

     Please let me assure you that my interest in all of the above is only aesthetic and intellectual, and that I do not seek or contemplate any personal prestige or material aid from any source.

     Your response, I hope, will indicate the possibility of my meeting you sometime after March 1^st at which time I will be returning to my home.

    Very sincerely yours,

 

         Spencer Heath

SH:ML

Enc.