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

446 MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY
with its natural law of increase are man's misconceptions
of man. All that is precious in present civilization has
been achieved, in spite of them, by the first factor-by
what man is-the peculiar organ of the civilizing energies
of the world. It is the second factor that has given
trouble. Throughout the long period of our race's childhood, from which we have not yet emerged, the timebinding energies have been hampered by the false belief
that man is a species of animal and hampered by the
false belief that man is a miraculous mixture of natural
and supernatural. These are cave-man conceptions. The
glorious achievements of which they have deprived the
world we cannot now know and may never know, but the
subtle ramifications of their positive evils can be traces
in a thousand ways. And it is not only the duty of professional historians to trace them, it is your duty and
mine. Whoever performs the duty will be appalled, for
he will discover that those evils-the evils of "magic and
myth," of space-binding "ethics," of zoological "righteousness"-for centuries growing in volume and momentum-did but leap to a culmination in the World War,
which is thus to be viewed as only a bloody demonstration of human ignorance of human nature.
We are here engaged in considering some of the
major implicates and bearings of the new concept of man.
The task demands a large volume dealing with the relations of time-binding to each of the cardinal concerns of
individual and social life-ethics, education, economics,
medicine, law, political science, government, industry,
science, art, philosophy, religion. Perhaps you will write
such a work or works. In the closing words of this lecture I can do no more than add to what I have said a
few general questions and hints.