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

KORZYBSKI'S CONCEPT OF MAN 445
not only because the exponent increases with the flux of
time, but because R itself is an increasing function of
time. It will be convenient, however, and we shall not
be thus erring on the side of excess, to speak of the abovementioned law, though it is inadequate, as the natural
law for the progress of time-binding, or of civilizationmaking.
Hereupon, there supervenes a most important question: Has civilization always advanced in accord with
the mentioned law? And, if not, why not? The timebinding energies of mankind have been in operation long
-300,000 to 500,000 years, according to the estimates
of those most competent to guess-anthropologists and
paleontologists. Had progress conformed to the stated
law throughout that vast period, our world would doubtless now own a civilization so rich and great that we
cannot imagine it today nor conceive it nor even conjecture it in dreams. What has been the trouble? What
have been the hindering causes? Here, as you see, Korzybski's concept of man must lead to a new interpretation
of history-to a new philosophy of history. A fundamental principle of the new interpretation must be the
fact which I have already twice stated, —namely, that
what man has done and does has depended and depends
both upon what man distinctively is and also, in very
great measure, upon what the members of the race have
thought and think man is. We have here two determining factors-what man is and what we humans think man
is. It is their joint product which the sociologist or the
philosophic historian must examine and explain. In view
of the second factor, which has hardly ever been noticed
and has never been given its due weight, Korzybski, in
answer to our question, maintains^ that the chief causes
which have kept civilization from advancing in accord