Mathematical philosophy, a study of fate and freedom; lectures for educated laymen, by Cassius J. Keyser.

KORZYBSKI' S CONCEPT OF MAN 429
planetary motion, or the atomic constitution of matter.
The two achievements, —that of the beaver and that of
the man,-are each of them a product of three factors:
time, toil, and raw material, where the last signifies, in
the case of purely scientific achievement, the data of
sense, in which science has its roots. Both achievements
endure, it may be for a short while only,-as in the case
of the dam or the bridge,-or one of them may endure
endlessly,-as in that of a scientific discovery. What
happens in the next generation? The new beaver begins
where its predecessor began and ends where it endedit makes a dam but the dam is like the old one. Yet the
old dam is there for the new beaver to behold, to contemplate, and to improve upon. But the presence of the
old dam wakes in the beaver's "mind" no inventive impulse, no creative stirring, and so there is no improvement, no progress. Why not? The answer is obvious:
the beaver "mind" is such that its power to achieve is
not reinforced by the presence of past achievement. The
new beaver's time is indeed overlapped, in part or wholly,
by the time of its predecessor for the latter time is present as an essential factor of the old dam, but that oldtime factor, though present, produces nothing-it is as
dead capital, bearing no interest. Such is the relation
of the beaver "mind,"-of the animal mind,-to time.
Now, what of the new man? What does he do?
What he does depends, of course, upon his predecessor's
achievement; if this was a bridge, he makes a better
bridge or invents a ship; if it was the discovery of analytical geometry, he enlarges its scope or invents the calculus; if it was the art of printing, he invents a printing
press; if it was the discovery of the laws of planetary
motion, he finds the law of gravitation; if it was the dis