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

KORZYBSKI'S CONCEPT OF MAN 443
cause; it is not civilized energy, it is the energy that
civilizes; it is not a product of wealth, whether material
or spiritual wealth, but is the creator of wealth, both
material and spiritual.
I come now to a most grave consideration. Inasmuch
as time-binding capacity is the characterizing mark,the idiosyncrasy,-of our human kind, it follows that
to study and understand man is to study and understand
the nature of man's time-binding energies; the laws of
human nature are the laws,-natural laws,-of these
energies; to study time-binding phenomena,-the phenomena of civilization,-and to discover their laws and
teach them to the world, is the supreme obligation of scientific men, for it is evident that upon the natural laws
of time-binding must be based the future science and art
of human life and human welfare.
One of the laws we know now,-not indeed precisely,
-but fairly well,-we know roughly, I mean, its general
type,-and it merits our best attention. It is the natural
law of progress in time-binding-in civilization-building.
We have observed that each generation of (say) beavers
or bees.begins where the preceding one began and ends
where it ended; that is a law for animals, for mere
space-binders-there is no advancement, no time-binding
-a beaver dam is a beaver dam-a honey comb a honey
comb. We know that, in sharp contrast therewith, man
invents, discovers, creates; we know that inventions lead
to new inventions, discoveries to new discoveries, creations to new creations; we know that, by such progressive
breeding, the children of knowledge and art and wisdom
not only produce their kind in larger and larger families
but engender new and higher kinds endlessly; we know
that this time-binding process, by which past time erm