222 PART IV - -PREPARATORY STAGE. 



is virtually zero (vide [c]), and his capacity for being cultured 

 is virtually infinite (vide [of]), there is virtually an infinite dis- 

 tance between the minimally and the maximally cultured man, 

 and consequently any differences between any two individuals 

 in respect of being cultured (Zulu in his Kraal, University 

 Professor in his Chair), are traceable first and foremost to the 

 circumstances in which they are placed, which is equivalent 

 to stating that human beings are, by birth and because they 

 are mentally species-dependent beings, almost infinitely more 

 like than unlike each other morally, intellectually, and practi- 

 cally. (/) It follows from (e) that the stock of humanity's moral 

 and other acquisitions, divided by the number of human beings 

 who have lived, positing the actual physical and cultural con- 

 ditions, virtually yields the latent capacity of the individual to 

 contribute to the stock of human acquisitions, and that, con- 

 versely, the quantity of effort put forth by one individual, 

 under the above conditions, multiplied by the number of human 

 beings who have lived, virtually yields the stage of culture 

 reached, (g) Since culture, as species-developed, is necessarily 

 a product of many minds and many ages (vide [/]), it is of 

 vital importance for each generation to preserve, adapt, im- 

 prove, and increase the stock of humanity's material and other 

 inventions and discoveries, which process, seeing the weakness 

 and the fallibility of the unaided human individual (vide [c]), 

 must be, in advancing stages, normally performed, so far as 

 non-material objects are concerned, by means of collective and 

 separate customs and institutions economic, educational, moral, 

 religious, legal, political, scientific, literary, artistic, etc. (h) Since 

 man is adapted for the specio-psychically determined state, he 

 lives exclusively and necessarily in that state and is unfit for 

 any other, which does not however preclude that in certain 

 departments of life man does live almost wholly still on the 

 animal stage that is, without the help of pan-species culture 

 (vide [/]). (/) Being primarily adapted for the specio-psychically 

 determined state, man is only truly himself when he is truly 

 cultured, and is the more himself the more he is cultured, be- 

 ing ideally himself when he is ideally cultured. (/) Being only 

 truly himself when he is truly cultured (vide [/]), he naturally 

 tends, if not discouraged, to improve the state of culture which 

 surrounds Mm, and cannot rest till the stage of culture becomes 

 in every respect ideal. (A) Since man ultimately aims at an 

 ideal state of civilisation (vide [/]), and since civilisation ignores 

 territorial limits, he ultimately aims at an ideally organised 

 universal civilisation and universal fellowship. (/) Since man 

 is by nature culturable, but not cultured, he does not, apart 

 from science, know that he is culturable, nor that he should 

 not depend on unenlightened instinct or passing reflections; 

 he therefore frequently entertains erroneous notions pertaining 

 to his essential nature, thinking that he is acting as a cultured 



