CHAPTER XXXIII
A DYNAMIC THEORY OF HISTORY (1904)
A DYNAMIC theory, like most theories, begins by begging the
question: it defines Progress as the development and economy of
Forces. Further, it defines force as anything that does, or helps
to do work. Man is a force; so is the sun; so is a mathematical
point, though without dimensions or known existence.
Man commonly begs the question again taking for granted that he
captures the forces. A dynamic theory, assigning attractive force
to opposing bodies in proportion to the law of mass, takes for
granted that the forces of nature capture man. The sum of force
attracts; the feeble atom or molecule called man is attracted; he
suffers education or growth; he is the sum of the forces that
attract him; his body and his thought are alike their product;
the movement of the forces controls the progress of his mind,
since he can know nothing but the motions which impinge on his
senses, whose sum makes education.
For convenience as an image, the theory may liken man to a
spider in its web, watching for chance prey. Forces of nature
dance like flies before the net, and the spider pounces on them
when it can; but it makes many fatal mistakes, though its theory
of force is sound. The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory,
and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking
apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of
its trap.
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