THE UNIQUE MAMMAL 13 



no smallest doubt about his being a mammal. And so far from 

 this being a handicap or detriment, the exact opposite is much 

 more nearly true. Man's firm biological anchorage to his solid 

 mammalian mooring is the greatest source of his strength in 

 the cosmic scheme of things. 



Ill 



The three peculiarities of man discussed in the preceding 

 section, though they represent only quantitative differentiations 

 from the mammalian stem, have had four far-reaching conse- 

 quences in human behavior, that in turn have led to the 

 separating of man very far indeed from all other animals. 

 These we shall now discuss. They are, stated as propositions: 



1. Man is a time-binder. 



2. Man is an organ-adder. 



3. Man is the foremost environment-maker and controller. 



4. Man is most diversely adept at getting a living. 



Time-bindingy to borrow the happy phraseology of Count 

 Korzybski, is biologically one of man's most important achieve- 

 ments, if for no other reason because of the large and always 

 increasing amount of time that it saves him. For time-binding 

 is the permanent accumulation of experience and knowledge by 

 means of the printed record. With the development of written 

 language, and later the correlative art of printing, man started 

 the accumulation in perpetuity of his past racial experience. 

 Furthermore these techniques of preserving and accumulating 

 experience are in the highest degree precise and exact. Euclid's 

 exposition of the basic propositions of plane geometry needs no 

 improvement and has not been bettered. The printed record 

 preserves it for our use forever. The inherent perfection of 

 the time-binding techniques leads to the broad biological result 

 that there is a steady progression, with no backward steps, in 

 man's power to control and adapt to his needs and uses the 

 forces and resources of the world in which he lives. Each 

 generation does not have to discover all over again the ways to 

 do this. 



