In Search of the Miraculous

the point of view from which he is generally accustomed to regard man, or from

which, for some reason or other, he regards him at the moment. One man at the

moment may be occupied with the question of the relation between the sexes. Then

the word 'man' will have no general meaning for him and on hearing this word he will

first of all ask himself—Which? man or woman? Another man may be religious and

his first question will be—A Christian or not a Christian? The third man may be a

doctor and the concept 'man' will mean for him a 'sick man' or a 'healthy man,' and, of

course from the point of view of his speciality. A spiritualist will think of 'man' from

the point of view of his 'astral body,' of 'life on the other side,' and so on, and he may say, if he is asked, that men are divided into mediums and non-mediums. A naturalist

speaking of man will place the center of gravity of his thoughts in the idea of man as a

zoological type, that is to say, in speaking of man he will think of the structure of his teeth, his fingers, his facial angle, the distance between the eyes. A lawyer will see in

'man' a statistical unit, or a subject for the application of laws, or a potential criminal, or a possible client.

A moralist pronouncing the word 'man' will invariably introduce into it the idea of

good and evil, and so on, and so on.

"People do not notice all these contradictions, do not notice that they never

understand one another, that they always speak about different things. It is quite clear

that, for proper study, for an exact exchange of thoughts, an exact language is

necessary, which would make it possible to establish what a man actually means,

would include an indication of the point of view from which a given concept is taken

and determine the center of gravity of this concept. The idea is perfectly clear and

every branch of science endeavors to elaborate and to establish an exact language for

itself. But there is no universal language. People continually confuse the languages of

different sciences and can never establish their exact correlation. And even in each

separate branch of science new terminologies, new nomenclatures, are constantly

appearing. And the further it goes the worse it becomes. Misunderstanding grows and

increases instead of diminishing and there is every reason to think that it will continue to increase in the same way. And people will understand one another ever less and

less.

"For exact understanding exact language is necessary. And the study of systems of

ancient knowledge begins with the study of a language which will make it possible to

establish at once exactly what is being said, from what point of view, and in what

connection. This new language contains hardly any new terms or new nomenclature,

but it bases the construction of speech upon a new principle, namely, the principle of relativity; that is to say, it introduces relativity into all concepts and thus makes possible an accurate determination of the angle of thought—for what precisely

ordinary language lacks are expressions of relativity.

"When a man has mastered this language, then, with its help, there can be

transmitted and communicated to him a great deal of knowledge and information

which cannot be transmitted in ordinary language even by using all possible scientific

and philosophical terms.

"The fundamental property of the new language is that all ideas in it are

concentrated round one idea, that is, they are taken in their mutual relationship from the point of view of one idea. This idea is the idea of evolution. Of course, not evolution in the sense of mechanical evolution, because such an evolution does not exist, but in the sense of a conscious and volitional evolution, which alone is possible.

"Everything in the world, from solar systems to man, and from man to atom, either

rises or descends, either evolves or degenerates, either develops or decays. Bur

nothing evolves mechanically. Only degeneration and destruction proceed

mechanically. That which cannot evolve consciously—degenerates. Help from

outside is possible only in so far as it is valued and accepted, even if it is only by

feeling in the beginning.

"The language in which understanding is possible is constructed upon

the indication of the relation of the object under examination to the evolution possible

for it; upon the indication of its place in the evolutionary ladder.

"For this purpose many of our usual ideas are divided according to the steps of this evolution.

"Once again let us take the idea man. In the language of which I speak, instead of the word 'man,' seven words are used, namely: man number one, man number two,

man number three, man number four, man number five, man number six, and man

number seven. With these seven ideas people are already able to understand one

another when speaking of man.