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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1393 



in question did not originate with me. I 

 sliould be proud if it had. I encountered it a 

 little less than a year ago in an unpublished 

 manuscript which by good fortune it became 

 my privilege to examine. And so the concep- 

 tion is mine only by acquaintance, by medi- 

 tation upon it, by a steadily growing sense 

 of its significance, and by adoption — adoption 

 of it, I mean, as an inspiring idea of great 

 beauty and as a fruitful working hypothesis. 

 The manuscript, I am happy to report, is now 

 being published (by E. P. Button and Com- 

 pany) in the form of a book entitled " The 

 Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art 

 of Human Engineering," and will appear very 

 soon. The author of it is a Polish nobleman, 

 Count Alfred Korzybski, a native citizen of 

 Warsaw, by temperament a poet and philan- 

 thropist, by training and experience a me- 

 chanical engineer and soldier, twice wounded 

 in the war; about six years ago transferred 

 as a military expert to ISTorth America where, 

 both in the United States and in Canada, he 

 worked hard in the cause of freedom. 



The book is, in my opinion, a momentous 

 contribution to the best thought of these 

 troubled years — momentous in what it con- 

 tains, even more so in what it suggests, and 

 most of all, I dare say, in the excellent things 

 it will eventually help men and women to 

 think and say and do. I am not going to re- 

 view it on this occasion. Having examined 

 the work carefully and reflected much upon 

 it, I am convinced that its significance can be 

 grasped and felt, not indeed by reading or 

 listening to any review of it, but only by read- 

 ing the work itself, re-reading it and ponder- 

 ing it. Wliat I purpose to do is at once some- 

 thing less and something more — I hope a good 

 deal more — than the submission of a review. 

 The work deals with a wide variety of ideas; 

 these do not constitute a mere collection ; they 

 constitute a system — the ideas are connected — 

 logically connected — spiritually interlocked in 

 many ways. It happens that among the ideas 

 of the system there is one which dominates 

 all the rest, binding them together, giving 

 them their proper order, their life, their light 

 and their significance — its place in the system 



is like that of the sun in the solar system. 

 Tliat central idea is Korzybski's concept of 

 Man — a concept of what is characteristic of 

 humankind; it is, in other words, a thesis 

 purporting to state what that is in virtue of 

 which we human beings are human. I desire 

 in the first place to present that thesis, or 

 conception, as clearly as I can, for your con- 

 sideration both now and in the future; it 

 will be my further aim to indicate, in so far 

 as time allows, some of the bearings it seems 

 to me to have upon the cardinal interests of 

 mankind. 



The task is not easy to perform well in the 

 time at our disposal. In. trying to perform it, 

 I am going to invite you to join me in an 

 attempt to do a little fundamental thinking. 

 I extend the invitation confidently for the 

 reason that the mood of such thinking is the 

 only mood that befits the times. The World 

 War has indeed constrained us to think about 

 realities as we never thought before, and there 

 is one thing of which we are all of us con- 

 vinced — it is only by thinking of realities that 

 we may hope to solve the pressing problems of 

 the world. That is a great gain and is full 

 of promise but it is only a beginning. In this 

 presence it is unnecessary to argue that in 

 dealing with realities it is of the highest im- 

 portance to have just conceptions of them; I 

 desire to emphasize the prime importance of 

 concepts that correspond to facts ; certainly in 

 this presence it is unnecessary to argue that, 

 in order to deal successfully with the great 

 human problems of our time, it is not suffi- 

 cient to have enthusiasm, sincerity and good- 

 will; we know that, in addition to these ex- 

 cellent things, it is indispensable to acquire 

 true conceptions of the realities involved. 

 Now, of all the realities with which we hu- 

 mans have to deal, of all the realities involved 

 in the present perplexities of the world, it as 

 evident that the supreme reality is man. It 

 follows that of all the questions we human be- 

 ings can ask— of all the questions which in 

 reflecting upon the ills of our time we must 

 ask — the supreme question — the most funda- 

 mental question — is: What is man? What is 

 a human being? Wliat is the defining or 



