September 9, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



209 



of the Greek philosopher — is not the way of 

 the Polish engineer. The latter is not indeed 

 without a blithesome sense of humor but in 

 this matter he is tremendously in earnest; 

 deeming it to be immeasurably important for 

 all mankind, he treats it with the utmost seri- 

 ousness; and he bluntly affirms, boldly and 

 confidently, that neither the mythological con- 

 ception nor the zoological conception of man 

 is true; he denies outright that man is a 

 species of animal and similarly denies that 

 humans are compounds of natural and super- 

 natural. 



What is the error in those traditional con- 

 ceptions? It is, he contends, of the same 

 kind in both of them, and the kind is funda- 

 mental. It is the kind of error that consists 

 in what mathematicians call confusion of 

 types and what Korzybski calls mixing of di- 

 mensions. Let me explain ; I have only to re- 

 mind you of what everybody knows. And 

 the simplest explanation is the best. You 

 and I may speak of, say, the class of geo- 

 metric points or of the class of spheres but we 

 can not speak logically of a class composed 

 of points and spheres for there is no such 

 class; or we may speak of the class of water- 

 drops or of the class of oceans but not logically 

 of a class of water-drops and oceans ; the types 

 are different and must not be confused; to 

 talk as if there were such a class is to talk 

 nonsense, and it would be the same if we tried 

 to discourse rigorously about a class com- 

 posed of stars and rays of light; it would be 

 to chatter as if there were no such thing as 

 logic, or laws of thought. The matter is even 

 clearer in terms of dimensions, or dimension- 

 ality; pardon me for dwelling upon it — it is 

 so very important: here is a straight line — it 

 has length only— it is a one-dimensional 

 thing ; it is not a point ; it does contain points 

 and it has some point properties, but, if on 

 this account we called it a point, we should 

 be guilty of a type-confusing blunder; next 

 consider a surface, say a plane — it has length 

 and breadth — it is a thing of two dimensions ; 

 it contains points and lines and it has certain 

 point properties and certain line properties; 

 but we do not call it a point or a line; if we 



did the blunder would be a dimension-mixing 

 blunder; once more, here is a solid, say a cube 

 — it has length, breadth and thickness — it has 

 three dimensions; it has surfaces and it has 

 certain surface properties, but it is not, there- 

 fore, a surface; if we called it a surface or if 

 we were to say it is a surface mysteriously 

 combined with some miraculous influence 

 from outside the universe of space, then in 

 either case we should be guilty of treason 

 against the eternal law of types or dimensions. 

 In the light of such elemental considerations 

 we are going to see very soon and, I hope, 

 very clearly what kind of beings we humans 

 are according to Korzybski's concept of man 

 and at the same time why he condemns the 

 traditional conceptions as false. Consider 

 the great life classes of our world — consider 

 their patent cardinal distinctions and rela- 

 tions candidly and open-mindedly ; and let 

 us begin with the class of plants. I offer, as 

 I need offer, only a rude sketch. Plants, we 

 say, are living things. How are they charac- 

 terized as a class, positively and negatively? 

 They take in, chemically transform, organize 

 and appropriate the basic energies of sun, 

 soil and air; but they have not the autonom- 

 ous power to move about in space; together 

 they constitute the lowest order or class or 

 type or dimension of life — say, for conveni- 

 ence, the life dimension I ; being, as indicated, 

 binders ■ of the basic energies of the world, 

 the plants are, in Korzybski's nomenclature, 

 the basic-energy-binding, or chemistry-bind- 

 ing, class of life. What of the animals? 

 What, I mean, are we to say of the creatures 

 traditionally designated .as the "lower" ani- 

 mals? Like the plants, animals, too, take in, 

 transform, organize and appropriate the ener- 

 gies of sun, soil and air, though in large part 

 they take them abeady prepared by the plants ; 

 but unlike the plants, animals possess the 

 autonomous power to move about in space — 

 to creep or crawl or swim or run or fly; it 

 is thus evident that, compared with plants, 

 animals belong to a higher type or dimension 

 of life — say the life dimension II; the class- 

 ification we are here interested in, you see 

 is broad; because they are distinguished by 



