Doctor Charles P. Steinmetz has given in his _America and the New Epoch_ a most correct engineering picture of the political situation in the world, with a fine characterization of the psychological peculiarities of the different races. Although this book was written in 1916, that is, before the end of the World War, it will be of permanent value; because of its deep psychological analysis of the peoples and their institutions which ultimately shape the development of any nation and which do not change with victory or defeat.
“My tribute to the memory of Gantt will be, not only the homage of a friend and admirer, but the proof that his philosophy is scientifically true. A rigorous proof is necessary, because the word ‘service’ belongs to that category of words, the meaning of which can be completely reversed by the verb, be it ‘give’ or ‘take.’ Gantt took ‘rendering service’ as an axiom; my observation, shared with many others, is that our civilization had quite another axiom, ‘we preach give, we practice take.’ The problem which interested me, was how to find a way out of this contradiction that would be irrefutable. If one of them is true and natural law for humans, then the other is not; if our words are true, then our deeds are not true, or if our deeds are true then the words are camouflage. I found the solution, by applying mathematically rigorous thinking. Mathematics, with its exact concept of dimensions, gave me the method. The method we use in studying phenomena is analysis, or speaking mathematically, differentiation. I soon found, that the methods of differentiation are mostly correct, but our synthesis, or process of integration made by the use of metaphysics was faulty. The differentiation correctly lowered the dimensions, but our faulty integration did not restore the original dimensions. The investigation had to be made from the beginning, by defining the phenomena of life, in a specific way, which would not permit of any blunders in dimensions.
“I defined the classes of life by emphasizing their incontestable, dimensional characteristics: plants are ‘Chemistry-binding,’ animals are ‘Space-binding,’ Humans are ‘Time-binding’ classes of life.
“These definitions have the peculiarity that they make it obvious, that: 1. The classes of life have different dimensions, and that the intermixing of dimensions, as in mathematics it makes a correct solution impossible, so in life, the results of such elementary mistakes, produce tragic consequences.