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

486 MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY
of that great dullard,-Common Sense,-has been unexpectedly challenged. For it is evident to common
sense,-it is obtrusively evident to sense-perception,that humans have certain animal organs and animal experience-they are begotten and born, they feed and
grow, have legs and hair, and die, all just like animals;
on the other hand, their time-binding faculty is not thus
evident; it is not, I mean, a tangible organ; it is an intangible function, subtle as spirit; and so common sense,
guided according to its wont by the uncriticized evidence
of sense, and thoughtlessly taking for major premise the
false proposition that whatever has animal organs and
propensities is an animal, concludes that our human kind
is a kind of animal. But in this matter, as in so many
others, the old dullard is wrong. The proper life of
animals is life-in-space; the distinctive life of humans is
life-in-time.
But why are mere concepts so important? Our lives,
we are told, are not controlled by concepts but by impulses, instincts, desires, passions, appetites. The answer
is: Because concepts are never "mere" concepts but are,
in humans, vitally connected with impulses, instincts,
desires, passions, and appetites; concepts are the means
by which Reason does its work, leading to prosperity or
disaster according as the concepts be true or false.
I have said that the ancient and modern rival of the
zoological conception of man is the mythological conception according to which man is a mysterious compound
or hybrid of natural (animal) and supernatural. This
conception might well be treated today as it was treated
yesterday by Plato (in the Timaeus, for example). "We
must accept," said he, "the traditions of the men of old
time who affirm themselves to be the offspring of the