Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1583

Carbon of a letter from Heath to F.A. Harper.

November 29, 1956

 

 

Dear Dr. Harper:

     My grandson and I had a very delightful visit with you and Dr. Opitz a week or so ago.

     Apropos of eminent scientists making bold adven­tures into fields other than their own, I am sending you a copy of Dr. Erwin Schrödinger’s little book, What is Life?. It may be that, like myself, you may not be able to fathom all of its mathematical minutiae, but if so, I am sure you will still be able to get his drift, which is far the more important. Doubtless, you will note the irony of his “negative entropy,” as if life were the negative of death. “Entropy”, as known to physical science, is, of course, 100 percent negative, so far as life or any other kind of order or organization is con­cerned. But we won’t have to care much which side of the scales he puts his plus or minus signs on, just so he realizes, as he does, that all nature’s dice are loaded in favor of the higher organizational processes and forms, of which the social organization of men in reciprocal relationships is the highest that we know — the only form having spiritual, that is, creative, functions and powers.

     I have been quoting Emerson on prohibition for years, and I am sure my version is very nearly exact. But after diligent search, I have failed to locate it. However, I have a friend in Montreal who is a regular hound for just such things as this. I have written her, and I think you will hear from her very soon. Meantime, I will make inquiry from other sources and let you have it just as soon as I can.

The quotation as I remember it is:

My friend, the prohibitionist, would deprive Scroggs of his beer, and make him feel the poorer for it; but I, for my part, shall not be content with myself until I have so in­spired him that he will give up beer and know himself the richer for it.

    It was kind of you to send us the addresses of the contributors to On Freedom and Free Enterprise.

     Many thanks for the Rothbard article on land administration. I am very happy to find that at least one professional economist in good standing has discovered the basic social function of private property in land — the fundamental public service which the landlord actually does perform and for which he receives an automatic, market-measured recompense in the form of ground rent or increment of value. The land-owner, of course, is seeking his own highest recompense, but in doing so, he is none-the-less choosing and allocating to that tenant or purchaser who is able to make it most productive and thus contribute most to the market and the public welfare.

     I hope very much that Mr. Rothbard will publicize his discovery and that it may come under considerable public discussion, to the enlightenment of many minds.

     My grandson and I are taking a plane tonight to attend the Chicago Conference on “Work in Today’s World” and to have the pleasure of meeting our Spiritual Mobilization friends.

Cordially,