[This was originally composed in the 1970's as a foreword for a new edition of Citadel, Market and Altar. Many thanks to Spencer Heath McCallum for his encouragement and fine suggestions.]
Spencer Heath (1876-1963) is remembered for his work to establish a more realistic basis for science. His theory of reality upholding observable events per-se as the foundation of natural science suggests a reformulation of physics in terms of action (instead of the more abstract energy) and has far-reaching implications. A rational measure of quality, or value, in human terms is found in the dimensions of action. Heath’s reasoning is followed into the domain of social phenomena where an action concept of population provides a quantitative measure of social performance and a humane rationale for human progress.
It was very late in his life when I met Spencer Heath. My first impression was that of a dignified and cultivated southern gentleman, a reserved but at the same time intensely self-assured man who was deeply absorbed in thought regarding some new ideas. At the time, 1961, I was traveling in some strident libertarian company that was driven to doing something about mankind's ominous collectivist predicament.
Mr. Heath appeared curiously tranquil vis-a-vis our burning concerns. At the same time, he was ambitious out of all proportion to his age to put forth a message concerning what he called, simply, "physics." He was especially eager to reach professionally qualified and academically recognized physicists in the hope that they would want to carry what he considered the real merit of his life's work into the mainstream of physics. Although such subjects seemed superfluous to the ideological contest in progress, it was largely on this basis that I was privileged to enjoy Heath's companionship. Sadly, I did not fully realize the significance of this privilege until after his passing.1
In 1932, at 56 years of age, Heath had retired from an active business career to devote himself to subject-matter he had long dreamed of making his life's work.2 He wanted to master the epistemology of the successful sciences (i.e. those that have given rise to dependable technologies) to find a means of constructing a foundation for a natural science of society. To appreciate how he went about accomplishing this task, one need only consider what were some of his most important readings during this time. As determined by the wear on bindings and the marginal notations on the pages of the many books in his library, a representative selection would include:
- Percy W. Bridgman, The Nature of Physical Theory
- Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Philosophy of Physical Science
- Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World
- Henry George, Progress and Poverty
- Robert A. Millikan, Science and Life
- Max Planck, A Survey of Physical Theory
- Hans Reichenbach, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy
Twenty-eight years elapsed before he published his findings in his major work, Citadel, Market and Altar, which he liked to call his "engineer's report.” In it he described what by then had become for him an all-encompassing philosophy of human knowledge and experience with which he proceeded to outline a natural science of society. He named his approach to the subject "socionomy," reviving an obscure but precise term of art from the lexicon of science that had fallen into disuse but was appropriate for his purpose. Webster defines "socionomy" as "the theory or formulation of the organic laws exemplified in the organization and development of society."
Although well satisfied with his outline of socionomy, in the perspective of his later years he believed that if he were to be remembered for any single accomplishment, it would more likely be for his broadly philosophical generalizations about science. While I understood and appreciated this achievement as a contribution to epistemology, the study of the limits and validity of knowing, Heath disdained that term, preferring to characterize his kind of thinking as "science of science" or just "philosophy of science."
In any case, these insights had already provided the foundation if not also the scaffolding for his work on social science, and now he believed they would be fruitful in making further advances in the physical sciences. It finally dawned on me after some years that the message he had been anxious to convey and to test against other minds dealt with nothing less than the possibility of a new integration of the physical sciences. The proposed integration would be in terms of action, rather than energy, thus reviving a most promising but neglected line of development undertaken in physics during the latter half of the nineteenth century.
At the beginning of our brief personal acquaintanceship, I was unaware of this enlarged scope of his thinking. Because of the circumstances surrounding our initial meeting, I had presumed that Mr. Heath would like nothing more than to discuss the conclusions of his book, Citadel, Market and Altar, as they related to contemporary social problems. Such discussions he seemed to enjoy as compliments to tolerate for brief interludes, but he always pursued his philosophically antecedent and intellectually unsatisfied interest in "physics" the instant the opportunity arose.
He had less patience still for those who wanted to discuss his landmark accomplishments in engineering and manufacturing in the fledging aviation industry before and after World War I. Never nostalgic, his interest was always on the pioneering edge. For him the technical problems of engine-powered, heavier-than-air flight had long since been resolved, and in principle at least the possibility of a natural science of society was established to his satisfaction. His new frontier was the simplification of "physics," and this he was eager to discuss.
Mr. Heath's speech was little more than a whisper, and he had an aversion for using forceful or authoritative expressions or gestures. A frail physique indicated his advancing years. (He celebrated his 86th birthday with my family at our home in Torrance, California on January 3, 1962.) These difficulties notwithstanding, accepting them as trifling deceptions of appearance, he was constantly making his opportunity for disclosure, even among presumptuous, impatient and loquacious conversationalists such as myself.
Although it was obscure to me at the time, Spencer Heath's interest in epistemology and physics was not merely incidental to his social inquiries. Now, reflecting on the remarkable social insights contained in Citadel, Market and Altar, it is clear that his antecedent but parallel study of the philosophy of science was the sine-qua-non of his achievement. This I discovered sometime later and then only after a re-reading of the "Prefatory Brief," "General Premises" and other material presented in the opening chapters of the book.
As a life-long devotee of the scientific method and an advocate of its universal applicability in all areas of human experience, I should have come around more quickly to appreciate the revolutionary and cosmic nature of Heath's inquiries and to see the merit of his achievements, as much for his method as for his particular discoveries, insights and deductions. Most significant perhaps, for me, his work demonstrated how scientific philosophy forged in the discipline of mature sciences such as physics can be instructive in developing an understanding of the seemingly more complex field of social phenomena.
Heath's sweeping generalizations regarding mankind had to be revolutionary to avoid the reductionist trap into which many competent physicists have fallen. But the implications of his conclusions are not revolutionary at all. Rather, they are evolutionary in nature. Although this may seem a subtle distinction, it was a memorable and lasting discovery for me.
Under the influence of Heath's intellectual and expository accomplishments and after more than thirty five years of gestation (wow!--that's half a lifetime), my early passion for libertarian ideology has been tempered by his more sober and fundamental scientific and technological persuasions. Admittedly, my intellectual development along these lines might not have occurred had I not first acquired an ideological attraction to the natural beauty of a laissez-faire world. Without this vision, it is doubtful I could have been sufficiently motivated to undertake the arduous studies required to understand how such a world works in practice. Now, instead of assuming society to be an institution that is somehow imposed on humanity for its own good, I see society as a natural manifestation of humanity, the development and operation of which I would seek to comprehend.
But the ideological distractions were costly and now, to my great chagrin, I realize the intellectual opportunities that were lost for many of us ideologues who were privileged to learn about this work directly from its author. There is a lesson here for the would-be revolutionary, whose ideology is like the cart before the horse. If society is a cart that can be drawn forward only by a horse consisting of dependable knowledge, that horse must first be born and bred of a science of human social behavior.
Heath's Theory of Reality
Spencer Heath hypothesized that human consciousness begins with the development of an awareness of self as distinct from not-self. The self lives in a subjective world that is not limited to experiencing contact with the not-self, the objective world outside of self. In his subjective world, man can entertain dreams and "phantasmagoria" without end. But when the outside world is the object of his speculations, he finds his subjective faculties offer him only limited means of dealing with the unlimited and unyielding objective world he faces. In his search for reality, he finds himself a captive of his subjective consciousness albeit informed to some extent by the short and narrow glimpses of the world outside as provided by his senses.
Consciousness denotes the human faculty for learning about the surrounding world--nature--if only in a comparatively small way. Science is the practice and method of learning. It refers especially to man's systematic efforts to learn and to develop his knowledge of how to survive his inescapable experience with that intractable and immutable nature. In this campaign, man eventually learns that he can never succeed in completely verifying his knowledge because he cannot experience all possible circumstances. He finds he can only eliminate what is false. Consequently, while his knowledge may grow in scope and depth, it remains tentative and uncertain. This exercise of his faculties teaches self-confidence tempered by humility. He soon learns he has within himself the power to know but he eventually discovers that the more he knows, the more he knows he does not know.
Knowledge is acquired only through science. While all knowledge is subjective, it is nonetheless rational. Heath observed that the process of thinking that resides in consciousness is ratio-nal only when and to the degree it involves comparisons under quantitative appraisal--fundamentally like forming ratios of numbers. In forming ratios, man finds and resolves various kinds of order or relationship such as weight and balance; stress and strain; action and reaction, quantity and quality; force and acceleration; equivalence and correspondence; attraction and repulsion; addition and subtraction; multiplication and division; differentiation and integration; form and function; melody, harmony and rhythm; tolerance and reciprocity; earning, spending and saving; peace and prosperity.
Perfect objectivity, i.e., complete congruence with nature, is an ideal never fully realized in science. Nevertheless, science is a universal human practice based on the common human faculties of perception, conception and curiosity. It is not merely an esoteric ritual reserved for the elite few residing in the ivory towers of academia. Whatever is truly known through science by whomever, however limited, is equally valid. Individual human survival on a day-to-day basis is prima-facie evidence of the universal practice of scientific method.
Spencer Heath abided by the principle that science deals not so much with abstractions as with events. Following Francis Bacon, all thoughtful scientists have realized that observable experience is the defining subject-matter of science. But Heath was more specific when he suggested that human experience consists of events. Heath made it plain that anything less than a whole, discrete event is an abstraction, a plaything of the human mind. He believed that every person's mind plays with his or her thoughts and abstractions, perceptions and emotions, but encounters with events introduces evidence of nature's play. Thereupon, contemplation is provoked.
In the absence of rational contemplation, experience remains blind and purposeless empiricism, aimless cutting and trying. However, without cutting and trying there is no experience for the mind to contemplate, whereupon mental exercise becomes mere musing and reverie. Thus, science involves a balance between experience, contemplation, analysis and experience, in roughly that order, practiced over and over ad infinitum. That is its method.
Heath suggested that when mind's play contemplates nature's play, we humans find evidence of a universal order in the world about us. Then we may experience a congruence, a oneness with nature, as Heath was fond of saying.
Heath would have recognized that a similar concept is commemorated by observant Jews who, anticipating the coming of their new year, celebrate Yom Kippur as a day of atonement ("at-one-ment"). On that day each year, as "Children of Israel," they grapple with nature (or the God of Nature for some) in the manner attributed to Jacob in The Book of Genesis. Rather than an annual ritual, however, Heath viewed the at-one-ment phenomenon as a continual process of contemplation.
Although he did not suggest it, Heath's regard for whole events is congenial to the Gestalt school of psychological studies. Instead of using that language, however, he embraced the traditional usage of physics in which the term “action” denotes the overall magnitude of an event. Thus a bigger event contains a larger measure of action, a smaller event a lesser value of this property or attribute.
The quantity or physical property action is defined in physics as the mathematical product of the energy content of an event and the time during which this quantity of energy is manifested. Consequently, a unit of action is expressed in such terms as erg-seconds.
An erg is a small metric unit of energy approximately equivalent to the amount of work expended in lifting a one-milligram weight to a height of one centimeter above the earth's surface at sea level--roughly comparable to picking up a grain of salt from the kitchen counter. The act of lifting (motion) such a weight (mass) to such a height in a one-second interval by the clock (time) represents an event containing one erg-second of action. While seemingly tedious, the precision of this operational definition, traceable as it is to observational procedures, illustrates the discipline of scientific method. Although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, a durable consensus requires dispassionate measures--not always or necessarily poetic but essentially precise and unambiguous.
Action is the least abstract quantity in physics, integrating as it does all the fundamental but abstract dimensions of experience. Anything less than the appropriate number of fundamental dimensions fails to combine into a unit of action descriptive of a whole experience while anything more than the minimum is superfluous and redundant, i.e. excess intellectual baggage.
Heath found that he could gain greater insight into the nature of experience by breaking down the usual definition of action (energy times time) into a threefold constituency. He saw that the fundamental dimensions of action imply no more nor less than three essential conceptions of reality--mass, motion and time--which can be expressed respectively in units of grams, centimeters and seconds. In combining these three abstract dimensions into the one quantity, action, Heath not only apprehended evidence of discrete, whole human experience--a Gestalt so to speak--but he could discern qualitative variations in that experience.
This usage of Heath’s has been criticized as inaccurate by some physicists and engineers. Such criticism prompted the author to examine the consistency of Heaths usage with that of conventional physics by resort to elementary definitions and first principles.3 The resulting derivations make it readily apparent that, from the viewpoint of classical physics, Heath’s simplified usage is justified notwithstanding that he is more precise when he refers to his abstract substantive component of action as “weight” in grams (force) rather than as “mass” in grams (mass). Since the distinction between weight and mass as concerns the hypothetically substantive constituent of action does not appear to be critical in Heath’s development, no qualitative error in his inquiries can be attributed to such usage. If anything, Heath could have made even more extensive projections of his physical analogies had he used the weight/mass distinction with greater precision.
On the other hand, Heath was critical of those physicists who overlook the difference in meaning between “time” in its durational sense and “time” as the cadence of change. The author’s dimensional analysis just referred to supports Heath’s contention, for it shows that time has utterly different significance in physics according to how it is factored into an argument. For example, when energy is multiplied by “time” as a duration, the quantity “action” is obtained. Here “time” conveys the sense of persistence or endurance. However, when energy is divided by “time,” time assumes the role of a cadence and the quantity known as “power” is obtained. As Heath points out, the former quantity (action) is actually experienced as both the quality and quantity of an event. By contrast, the latter (power) is merely an abstract conception of the rate at which energy may be expended with respect to the passage of time. Obviously, the sense of “time” makes all the difference in the world--reality versus abstraction.
The bulk of modern physics is formulated in terms of energy, notwithstanding the fact that it takes no account of the durational aspect of reality and is therefore a totally abstract concept. Strictly speaking, energy is not directly observable. As Heath points out, the durational property it neglects is an intrinsic attribute of all experience, which is essentially and fundamentally "event-ual." Heath found this oversight to be a significant defect in physics, inasmuch as it obliges physicists and engineers to submit to a separate "reality check."
The consequences of this reality defect in the energy formulation of physical theory are readily illustrated. Classical thermodynamics provides engineers a criterion for attaining the maximum possible conversion of heat energy to work. If time were forever, such a feat might be accomplished with a thermodynamically ideal Carnot-Cycle engine. However, time is always at a premium for engineers and their human clients. Consequently, engineers account for precious time by resort to separate, tedious consideration of various external factors affecting the time-rate of energy transport, namely, friction, inertia, strength of materials, heat and fluid flow resistance, heat capacity, etc. In the end, actual engines, although obedient to Carnot's principles, must effect vastly different physical processes in order to be practical and useful. This situation is analogous to that faced by the Chinese chef who must cook some of his dishes twice to obtain the proper result.
Though ever mindful of the eternal ideal, engineers nevertheless manage to settle for less than perfection in order to make creative history in the real world of human experience. Abiding by the principles of thermodynamics, they not only accept their fate that "you can't get something for nothing" (the First Law), but they know they must give back to nature part of what they receive from nature in order to continue in nature (the Second Law). In this encounter, there can be bargains with but no conquest of nature. Harmony is the most one can achieve.
Heath conceived of the possibility of literally reformulating modern physics in terms of action instead of the more abstract energy, thereby making observable events per-se the foundation of physical science. Although physics took a turn in this direction in the late nineteenth century, the more familiar energy viewpoint still predominates even though the revolutionary quantum physics is based upon an action-formulated hypothesis. Energy formulations, derived from the conservation principle, preoccupy physicists everywhere else but in quantum physics while the principle of least action languishes--notwithstanding its recognized supremacy as a universality in physical theory. The supremacy of the least-action principle is readily demonstrated by the fact that the energy-conservation principle can be derived from it and is, therefore, a consequence of it, whereas the converse has never been accomplished.
Modern physics, to which Heath was devoted, reckons there to be a discrete lower limit to the size of an event that can be observed in nature without being corrupted by the observer. That is to say, an event having a magnitude smaller than Planck's quantum cannot be experienced by man independent of his manipulations, even with instruments. Therefore, below this level of experience, knowledge becomes indeterminate and the uncertainties that are inherent in scientific work increase to the point where, regardless of diligence, no confidence can be gained in knowing the abstract details underlying the phenomena.
Whatever may lie beyond the pale of reproducible observation remains a speculation. But scientists like Heath do not deny that anything conceivable may exist in the domain of some ultimate objective reality that is presumed to exist but may forever remain outside the scope of scientific treatment and, thus, the sphere of human knowledge.
Consequently, all men are obliged to live with a degree of uncertainty in their lives and to maintain an appropriate level of humility and sobriety to go with it. This apparent limitation on the validity of human knowledge seems to ordain an awareness of ignorance that grows faster than the knowledge acquired. Surprisingly, such a limitation is not so oppressive as to discourage learning.
To the contrary, mans' capacity for learning about nature is truly remarkable. For example, consider the quantum of Planck, a vanishingly small event which contains a quantity of action called "Planck's Constant," also known in physics as "Planck's Quantum of Action." Physicists have determined Planck's constant with amazing precision to be about 0.00000000000000000000000000663 erg-seconds of action (6.63 x 10-27 erg-seconds). If an erg-second represents an almost unnoticeable chunk of history in human terms, then a quantum-sized event must be infinitesimal--a billionth-of-a-billionth-of-a-billionth of an erg-second. But it is not a "nothing." It is a finite "something." It is the fundamental unit of all observable phenomena, the indivisible event comprising all memorable experience.
Heath noticed that quantum physics bears a marked resemblance to early Greek atomistic philosophy. The ancient Greeks had been handicapped, however, by their belief that their ultimate building blocks, atoms, had to be all alike, and by the fact that they were never able to explain how to observe one. Quantum physics represented to Heath a powerful refinement and advance in the Greek tradition by virtue of its reliance on the concept of action. This concept enabled him to relate directly to experience and to bring into account its constituent and quantifiable dimensions, whereby he could visualize infinite qualitative variation in the quanta of experience in terms of the proportions of those dimensions.
Heath was intrigued with three particular events which, regardless of the magnitude of action involved in them, vary so extremely in the proportions of their attributes of mass, motion and time as to manifest variously
- the speed of light (least mass),
- absolute minimum temperature (least motion) and
- nuclear fission (least time).
The photon of Einstein represents another example of this intriguing qualitative aspect of events. Although Einstein preferred to think of a photon of light in terms of continuous electromagnetic waves and fields, a photon can also be depicted as a quantum of action manifesting qualitative variation in terms of its constituent units. A given photon can display the various colors in visible light, attain remarkable penetrating power as "x-rays," and travel long distances through clouds, around the curvature of the Earth and throughout space as "radio waves," all according to its wavelength or period of vibration.
To illustrate still further the "qualitative" nature of events, we can easily construct in our imagination pairs of events of equal magnitude--that is, containing equal quantities of action--that evoke sharply contrasting human perceptions. For example, a Thanksgiving roast turkey dinner represents a physical event containing about the same magnitude of action as a lightning bolt. However, contrast the human responses to these "equal" events--gratification on the one hand and trauma on the other.
Classical, as opposed to quantum, physics has developed wherever nature "appears" to be continuous. Under such conditions, scientists can safely concentrate on processes or mechanical relationships while ignoring discrete events. Continuum physicists have been successful--even spectacularly so--when dealing with macrocosmic phenomena, where mechanical models of the universe suffice for most engineering applications and analysis. However, in the realm of radiation, chemistry, thermodynamics and other studies where physicists are pressed to deal with "micro" physical phenomena, the notion of action has become indispensable.
At the micro-scale of experience, the newer quantum physics, notwithstanding or perhaps because of its concern for indeterminacy, has proven its great explanatory power, succeeding in areas where the classical approach has utterly failed to produce agreement with observation. The mechanistic determinism of renaissance science, although alluring in its structural but abstract simplicity, is now seen to be inadequate for resolving nature’s order in such seemingly more complex phenomena as human society.
The discretely eventual or corpuscular view of the world has challenged and discomforted many thoughtful people throughout the ages. No less a person than Albert Einstein was one. Spencer Heath was not. Heath found ample evidence of processes or fields of influence connecting events to explain the flow of history, and he had no problem conceding the concept of continuity in nature to an "ultimate reality." Thus the idea of everything being connected to everything else was entirely plausible to him notwithstanding his belief that humans experience reality only in discrete events--and then from an egocentric frame of reference.
Spencer Heath's Personal Trinity
As mentioned above, Heath depicted "events," possessing the attribute "action," as having three quantifiable aspects or constituent dimensions, namely, "mass," "motion" and "time." He then referred to those dimensions of experience in terms of the physicists’ standard units of "grams," "centimeters" and "seconds." On occasion he would compare the integration of these three abstract dimensions of reality comprising the concept of action with the Christian concept of the Trinity.
In discussing religious symbolism, Heath would link "trinity" with a small "t" and "Trinity" with a large "T." He would point out how the abstract concepts of mass, motion and time, which are actually experienced only in unity, are suggested in the Christian theologians' characterization of their "Ultimate Reality" in terms of "Substance, Power and Eternity"--more usually personalized as "Father, Son and Holy Spirit." He suggested that the theological apprehension of an ultimate reality in those trinitarian terms was evidence that religion might have anticipated the conclusions of modern physics. With this observation, Heath usually concluded his theological speculations.
Heath observed that theologians and scientists must necessarily deal with the same reality. However, the scientist apprehends it in finite terms and measures it in units such as gram, centimeter and second while the theologian contemplates its absolute or infinite aspects and makes poetic speculations. The scientist believes in absolutes but is resigned to live with only tentative knowledge of such as he seeks out an uncertain "heaven on Earth" in the here and now. The theologian, on the other hand, is quite certain that his beliefs will lead to a life everlasting in an imagined hereafter. As far as Heath was concerned, there is no inherent conflict and there can be no competition between science and religion because both proceed from a belief in an ultimate reality but seek different ends and employ different means.
Trinitarian symbolism suffused Spencer Heath's personal philosophy. Such an integration is reflected in the title he chose for his book, Citadel, Market and Altar. Those three words symbolized for him the three abstract departments or functions of society as he conceived it, all three of which are essential to the whole (the concept is reminiscent but independent of Rudolph Steiner's similar formulation in The Threefold Commonwealth, with which Heath was familiar).
Heath's "Citadel" stands for prudence, discipline and physical defense, impulses that make life in society possible. His "Market" represents the economic achievements that sustain social life at a given level. "Altar" symbolizes the inspired--the creative--life individuals in society become free to engage in as they achieve technological prowess and economic resourcefulness. Inspired and competent individuals, through pursuit of scientific discoveries and by employment of their technical and aesthetic arts--pursued and employed for their own sake and not from any sense of necessity--advance society, enabling it to ever transcend its past.
These ideas also suggested to Heath certain physical analogies. The citadel suggested mass, inertia or reaction, the ethical aspect of society that resists encroachment from within or without. The market signified motion--initiative, production and exchange--the metabolism of the community. The altar intimated the durational element, the eternal and immortal aspect of social events comprising inspirational, visionary, creative, evolutionary, transformational, aesthetic--i.e., qualitative--affairs.
Socionomy
Spencer Heath resisted the temptation to coin new words, avoiding jargon even as he struggled to define new concepts. He succeeded in finding suitable terms of discourse in the face of contradictory common usages of etymologically appropriate words. For example, the word "sociology" had the proper etymological credentials for naming the natural science of society he envisioned, but for him that term had come to stand for endeavors of questionable scientific qualification and results of doubtful relevance to humanity.
Perhaps by analogy with astronomy, in which the world is contemplated as an objective universe that goes along quite nicely by itself, Heath chose the word "socionomy" for the study of society as a natural outgrowth of individual human behavior that seems to proceed in a like manner. Heath employed this term instead of "sociology" because it suited his concentration on discovering the organic laws of society as a natural phenomenon and was free of extraneous and ulterior usages.
In addressing the special nature of man, the question whether man is somehow apart from the rest of nature and not susceptible of scientific investigation, Heath saw fit to confront the age-old controversy regarding "free-will" versus "determinism." He suggested that these contrasting views of the world can be appreciated as merely two aspects of the same thing like the face and obverse sides of the coin of nature. He pointed out how the intrinsic attributes of a rock "will" the course of its natural history, which in turn is "determined" by the interacting forces in the rock’s environment. Likewise, men are bound to act in whatever environment they find themselves in accordance with their individual nature, which is neither random nor mechanistic but is willful and consistent with those unique, intrinsic, infinitely variable attributes, whatever they are.
Physicists and engineers who embrace the quantum viewpoint and practice the principles of physics derived therefrom have brought about some of the world's greatest technological achievements. This connection was not lost on Spencer Heath. With the quantum viewpoint in mind, he looked for correspondences in the domain of human social phenomena, which until then had revealed few regularities to scientific inquiry. His investigation was destined to put those phenomena in a new perspective and to establish an approach to their study that would be eminently faithful to them.
For Spencer Heath, a dependable technology was the hallmark of authentic science. The action concept, encompassing as it does the abstract dimensions of experience, led him to the generalization that technology, in whatever domain of application, consists in the deliberate re-proportioning of real events to accord with men's desires. Such re-proportionment consists of knowledgeably influencing the content of events by emphasizing any one of the three quantifiable aspects of experience. Heath would show that this generalization holds in the social field as truly as in the physical, but that re-proportionment in the social field tends to focus on maximizing the durational element. As a result, technological advancement accounts not only for social progress but also for the transcendence of social life over mere animal existence.
Heath's Social Quantum
Bringing the action (or quantum) viewpoint to bear in the domain of human social phenomena appears to have been a turning point in Heath's thinking. Reasoning that every good science, as exemplified by physics, must have a fundamental unit of experience to distinguish its particular domain of phenomena and to establish a foundation for its development, he postulated the individual human person and his life, taken as a whole, to be that discrete, indivisible social event--the essential and irreducible social quantum.
Proceeding from this fundamental conception of a social quantum, Heath was led to the conclusion that society is composed of spontaneously-acting individuals in reciprocal relationships. When such individuals, each and every, are uncompromised in their natural habitat, society arises out of this environment and develops, evolves, interacts, organizes, elaborates and grows inexorably as a natural phenomenon.
It is curious how Heath's "action" concept of society, although entirely different in meaning from the usage of the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises,4 nevertheless led him to very similar conclusions regarding the nature of humane society. However, unlike Mises, Heath disdained the use of such ideologically-charged terms as “laissez faire,” “liberal,” “democratic” and “capitalistic” to characterize what he believed to be progressive social phenomena.
Heath found it productive to distinguish between society and the human population as a whole. He identified society expressly in terms of symbiotic, consensual and volitional behavior. Thus, those members of the population temporarily practicing the contrary kind of behavior would not, during that interim, be included in the societal fraction of the population. By virtue of such alienating behavior, such persons would have taken themselves out of the social scene and returned to their original arena of life by reverting to their more primitive animal natures. Consequently, in Heath’s view, the human population consists of a jungle of conflict and coercion at the frontier of an ever expanding sphere of social life.
In this endless process of becoming, Heath saw the individuals comprising the socially-interactive part of the population as both benefactors and beneficiaries vis-a-vis the residuum of the population containing prey and predators. This paradigm would explain for him the symbiosis that produces a semblance of continuity in a world of seemingly discrete and chaotic events. For in the resulting transformation of human biological life into human societal life, there develops a creative force wholly different from, yet altogether compatible with, the biological units themselves. In this sense, society is something other than merely the sum of its parts.
Heath thus conceived of society as a population within a population. This concept implies that society has a constituency that is ever subject to change. Social islands form spontaneously and are thus ever open to admission from the animal arena. A clear implication of this concept is that the behavior manifested in traditional political government--as well as and no less than that manifested in free-lance criminality--lies in the other (non-social) part of the population, since such activities violate the integrity of other human individuals. Such practices are contrary to normal social behavior because they constitute assumptions of authorities (attributes) that cannot be universally exercised by the human population in general.
However, Heath believed those persons who might have engaged in such contrary activity face no permanent bar to entering the social habitat. Quite the opposite, for consistent with their dual natures as critters or creators they may (and do) come and go at will, perhaps staying longer with each visit in the social realm as they discover for themselves how social behavior enhances their lives. Those who are already behaving socially will not need to build a great wall of protection or to hire various gangs of armed pickets when they find that knowledge and prudence generally suffices in their dealings with the population at large.
Heath's view of taxation and its related coercion is illustrative. He perceived that these social insults are in the process of being outgrown. Human society for Heath was like a developing social organism, an evolving order of biological entities that, like other progressive life forms, completes its structures and functions as it continues to evolve and mature. Thus it should not be surprising that, like all developing organisms in their immature juvenile states, society manifests certain crudities as does every newborn. But as the human societal life form continues to evolve, according to Heath, administration of its public community affairs is destined to pass altogether from the political arena into the domain of the free market--that is, to be absorbed into society or superseded by evolving social practices. Statecraft with its built-in conflicts and inclinations toward intimidation and conquest will ineluctably be abandoned as obsolete in favor of peaceful and productive social institutions.
During a good part of his life, Spencer Heath had pondered the question of how a market for public community services would ultimately be served consistent with the nature of society as he saw it. He was attracted to the largely libertarian ‘Philosophy of Freedom’ of Henry George but struggled for years to resolve the problems inherent in his "single-tax" proposal. He was troubled by George's proposal that government should monopolize land ownership and ground rents on behalf of "the community," finding that such an arrangement retained the seed of totalitarianism.
He finally realized that ground rent, paid voluntarily to a community owner or owners, affords a total alternative to taxation and bureaucracy. In his 1935 monograph, Politics Versus Proprietorship, he showed how proprietary administration is a viable alternative to political administration of that part of community life that is enjoyed in common. This was the breakthrough discovery that had eluded Henry George. It was a breakthrough because it is precisely that aspect of human life--the quest for community--that provides the traditional excuse for politics and taxation which inevitably lead away from community toward human bondage.
It was a remarkable finding by Heath that communities have owners--i.e. the owners of the underlying realty--who, once they understood their own interest, could organize and manage community enterprises along proprietary lines and deliver public services competitively for profit. Having lifted the veil of mystery surrounding this remaining vestige of political usurpation, Heath saw in the modern hotel a working example of proprietary community arrangements that are successful notwithstanding the taxation and regulatory handicaps that prevail in the community at large.
Heath found prospects for the proprietary administration of public services in the greater community to be especially promising should the presently divided and separate ownerships in land merge to form incorporeal entities, thus enabling widespread ownership of undivided (i.e., joint or share) interests in the community. He found such arrangements to be in total accord with the normal pattern of ownership in a hotel or other multiple-tenant income property. That the community owners might then be the same as the tenants was an intriguing possibility, but Heath did not find such a status to be essential for either equity or practicality since the favorable social results he foresaw would necessarily derive from the integrity and ingenuity of contracts, not from any plebiscitary ritual.
Measuring Social Performance
The physicist's notion of action was the key to Heath's remarkable integration of social thinking. That concept was not only his anchor to reality but it also provided him with an appropriate tool with which to apply the scientific method to social affairs.
Spencer Heath's "Energy Concept of Population"--more accurately, his action concept of population--developed in chapter three of Citadel, Market and Altar represents the integration of his social discoveries. In this treatment, which adroitly illustrates what he means by socionomy, he takes into account not merely the number of people comprising a population but also their average life span.
Consider a given generation of human individuals, defined by a proper census, as representing the energy content of an event in human history. The average life span of that population as determined by actuarial methods will be its duration. The product of these two abstract quantities will give the magnitude of this human event as a quantity of action expressed in terms of "life-years." In the durational component, to the extent it exceeds the time required for biological maturation and reproduction essential for continuing the population as such, Heath found evidence of the social nature of that population and its quality of life. (Consider the implications if such a figure of social merit were to supersede reliance on such trumped-up measures as "gross national product.")
Combining these two aspects of a population as a measure of its social viability, he manages to explain human behavior with breathtaking implications. His analysis of the constituent units and their relations with respect to the quantitative and qualitative aspects of society is as precise as it is poetic.
Heretofore, science, with its inclination to quantify, has been severely handicapped in the social field by the lack of a universally recognized measure of quality, or value, in human terms. In the preponderance of scientific deliberations numbers suffice to determine the "most," the "least" and the "optimum." Qualitative judgments are always exterior, frequently controversial, considerations. Hence arise the interminable arguments over politics, morality, ethics, justice and social conscience. This is ironic in view of the growing confidence in science in almost every other aspect of human life. It is fair to ask, therefore, how it happens that science, so successful in so many ways, seems unable to settle such arguments.
Heath transcended all such controversy. The energy content of social events failed to intrigue him because he observed that individual human variation in such terms as size, weight, strength, energy, mental capacity, talent, sex, skin-color, disease resistance, environment, etc. did not distinguish human populations sufficiently to explain the extreme variation observable in their "quality of life" in the aggregate. His concentration instead was on the durational aspect of those populations as human events which he could account for in his unit of human action, the "life-year." From that vantage he could observe how certain types of human behavior affected longevity and how that longevity was related to all manner of human productivities and satisfactions--noting that the extension of individual life beyond the minimum for procreative necessity was the most significant variable. With this standard, Heath could focus on the behavioral elements that affected life-span as a whole. He identified those elements that he found contributing to longevity as the truly "social" phenomena. Contribution to human longevity thus became his criterion of social life which he applied in his examination of every kind of human behavior from economics to politics to religion to art.
It was the durational aspect of events that enabled Heath to conceive of a bridge linking the quantitative world of traditional science and the more subjective, qualitative world of human society. For he discerned that a fundamental relationship exists between the durational component of events and the human world of choice and preference. No mere analogies with the findings of physics could have sufficed for this purpose.
An intimate and fundamental relationship between the durational component of events and the subjective values manifested by every acting human being can readily be demonstrated. Consistent with Heath's observations of reality as well as with Mises’ conceptions of human action, each person's life is perceived by himself to be severely limited to a finite duration of which no precious moment is to be relived, and in which, with each passing moment, there arises the desire to make the next better than the last. This temporal imperative explains what ultimately compels us all to prioritize, evaluate, discriminate, choose, commit, act, save, spend and exchange--i.e.. manage, venture and trade--based on each person's egocentric frame of reference, regardless of his state of preparation or degree of enlightenment.
Notwithstanding great variation in the consequences of this imperative--each individual person is affected differently--the imperative itself is universal. So is the risk that the decisions we are each bound to make, based on the always incomplete knowledge at hand, may turn out to be inappropriate to the future state of affairs we desire for our lives. Each of us readily concedes that a similar burden befalls his fellow man, whoever or wherever he may be. Here was more evidence of human connectivity to account for a sense of social fabric, structure or continuity. This perception of a kind of universal and impersonal kinship among humans could account for the existence of community life going well beyond mere familial, tribal or ethnic alliances.
Heath found the concept of durability to be thoroughly embedded in human action. It emerges as the criterion upon which we all rely to assign priorities among the values we ascribe to our lives and to the goods, institutions and traditions we associate with our lives. Moreover, he showed that the test of successful organization, design, structure and practice is precisely that it endures and, necessarily therefore, at no expense to the durability of its constituent units. Durability thus marks the qualitative difference. Thus the entrepreneur strives for profit not merely because--as some would say--he is greed prone, but because the achievement of profits--via competitive, voluntary exchange methods--offers him the only means by which he can make his venture last.
Property, the Ticket to Social Life
The durational component of action is related to two of the most fundamental motivations of human life--self-preservation and self advancement. Man's reach is for survival and then beyond mere survival. His reach is for both quantity and quality of life. Derivative of this observation, Heath found that the social convention known as "property" stands out as a phenomenon of critical importance.
Heath departs from the traditionally moral view of ownership as a matter of individual rights granted from a "higher authority." His analysis proceeds from his observations of ownership functioning as a social institution. The unspoken social convention, or covenant, establishing the institution of property he found to be the essential factor that makes all the rest of the spectrum of social relations possible, thereby directly enhancing durability (longer life). The duration of one's life and the time available for living it fully is served on the one hand, he explains, by “quiet possession” (property in the individual or private sense), and on the other by the specialization of services and exchange (property in the social sense). He shows how this social convention enables men and women to moderate the temporal imperative each faces and with which each must deal in his own way.
Property in the individual sense is said to be owned. Ownership, therefore, is the status that derives from the social condition of quiet possession. McCallum points out that the root of the word own is the same as for the word owe.5 Thus, to own property enables one to owe another. This is suggestive that property has long been regarded as having a reciprocal social function.
Heath might readily have characterized the institution of property in some manner like the following: Ownership and its socially dynamic corollary of exchange liberate the imagination, open the path to immortality and inspire the prospect of infinite creation. Property is truly the social capital in nature which underwrites man's inclinations to perfect his life, to nurture his offspring, to cultivate his community and to preserve the prospects of succeeding generations of his species.
Heath thus analyzes the convention of property as having a dual nature, an individual and a social aspect, both of which he finds embedded in consensual (volitional) phenomena. The individual aspect, quiet possession, is precedent. It calls for a covenant among men, at least among those in the neighborhood, that thou shalt not do (trespass, etc.). This covenant of quiet possession confers more than an immediate benefit in terms of personal security. It is the true social covenant for it establishes the tolerance that enables exchange by means of which man may serve himself by serving others. Without quiet possession, not only is there no secure production or consumption; there is nothing secure to exchange.
While he discovered the social aspect of property in the process of exchange, Heath found exchange to be quite evidently derivative of quiet possession because it occurs only when a transaction is mutual, and mutuality cannot be established if the status of the parties with respect to the contemplated exchange is ambiguous. Exchange proceeds only upon agreement --which is contract--to do that which prompts other participants to do their part freely in return, i.e., to reciprocate.
Exchange is man's principal agency of self-improvement because improvement requires doing and, obviously, not just anything will do. Some "doings" cause conflict, which detracts from life. Others, lacking technological prowess, not only fail to gratify but are wasteful of time and materials. Thus, it is the individual drive for self improvement that underlies the consensus for reciprocity characterizing civil society everywhere. That man civilizes himself is a consequence of his drive for self improvement. Such civilizing tendencies are recognized by economists in what they call “the division or specialization of labor" and by sociologists in what they see as a virtually universal quest for "education."
Heath defined property in its social sense in strictly operational terms, namely, as “that which can become the subject-matter of contract." This was no mere abstract definition to suit his theoretical constructions. He would rely on what is meant by “contract” to explain the origin and operation of proprietary administration, which he showed to be the only truly rational form of administration for whatever social purpose.
Possibly a result of his training in law, Heath was satisfied that Anglo-Saxon common-law notions of contract were reliable, reinforcing his view of property as a social institution. According to this conception, property is a natural phenomenon that is discovered by man who, upon such discovery, may characterize it as "natural law." "Property," so understood, is no more a creation of man-made law, or statute, than are language, art, music, arithmetic, common law, family, money, etc.
Heath was aware of widespread confusion in the minds of the public regarding the institution of property. He recognized that many unthinkingly enjoy its blessings while harboring ancient beliefs that property and wealth--which naturally tend to become unevenly distributed and envy being an ever-present emotion--are merely personal goods to be consumed or destroyed at will in self-indulgent, sometimes even sinister gratifications. He also attributed such beliefs to the fact that until comparatively recent times most large accumulations of wealth were gathered through political predation and not through services voluntarily rendered in the market. In this web of superstition he included the further view that only the legally privileged owner can enjoy property socially, and then only when he is taxed pursuant to some social pretense of political government.
Heath observed that, at least in the modern world, property functions in precisely the opposite manner. He observed that, except in the hands of government, the great community of wealth is in the form of capital goods and facilities which naturally flow by voluntary exchange toward the fulfillment of human satisfactions of all kinds, particularly those of the most numerous and least resourceful. In this process, such capital would surely dissipate and dissolve were it not regenerated in the same process by the genius of proprietary administration.
Thus Heath showed how covenant and contract (tolerance and reciprocity) are the essential ingredients underlying the truly social development of mankind. The strictly consensual nature of these practices assures the integrity of the participating parties, thereby allowing their full free-functioning and interfunctioning. The humane consistency of the resulting arrangements is symbiotic and viable, enabling them to endure while other less-universal arrangements, at odds with the integrity of the units, are self-defeating and alienating. Lacking durability, such practices must fall away in time. Thus is social behavior ever in the ascendant.6
Conclusions
Because of the natural inclinations of people toward covenant and contract, institutions built upon them become ever more viable, pervasive, universal and durable, and ever more capable of extending the peace and prosperity so highly cherished by men and women across the world. The prospect of universal peace and prosperity is thus shown by Heath to be inherent in the nature of humanity.
Among the most surprising results of Heath's findings are that the nature of humanity is to nurture and that, remarkably, it is from the mundane characteristics of the isolated, individual units, characteristics such as self interest, that heroic social prospects arise and become fulfilled. This apparent inexorability of human progress warrants the most profound optimism.
Two centuries before Heath, Adam Smith attributed man’s social prospects to the presence of an "invisible hand" that would somehow account for the possibility of a "good" society. According to Smith, this would be an outcome of man's attempts to do well for himself because he would be guided by that mysterious "hand" to do "good" while doing well. In his last published book, the late Nobel Laureate Friedrich A. Hayek notes Smith’s perspicuity:
“In a world governed by pressures of organized interests, we cannot count on benevolence, intelligence or understanding but only on sheer self-interest to give us the institutions we want. The insight and wisdom of Adam Smith stand today.”7
Smith's insights were quite remarkable considering the primitive state of science and technology in his time and the limitations of eighteenth-century social experience. His struggle to find meaning and order in human life in a mostly paternalistic environment is reflected in the title he chose for his most comprehensive work, Wealth of Nations. However, Smith’s “invisible hand” was clearly visible to Spencer Heath’s naked eye, and Heath was able to sort out the confusion resulting from Smith’s unfortunate title associating wealth with nations rather than with people themselves.
Conceivably advantaged by social developments anticipated by Smith and reduced to practice since the American Revolution, Heath is now able to explain the process of how man is attaining such results by proceeding to do what he is naturally bound to do, namely, "well" for himself at no expense to the wellness of others. Heath shows how men are naturally obliged to do "good" for others as a consequence of that drive and how social progress has occurred and is continuing to occur as a historical result irrespective of "national" organizations.
Focusing on the durational properties of social events as criteria of quality, Heath was able to achieve a fundamental unity with such paragons of traditionally liberal social thinking as the Austrian school's rendition of economic behavior and Judeo-Christian religious convictions regarding ethical behavior. Encompassing both subjective-value theory with its corollary, the free market, and the principles of property (the commandments) and coercion-free exchange (the golden rule) at such a fundamental and non-sectarian level permitted Spencer Heath to explore with exquisite ease our most pressing concerns for private life and public order, human freedom and progress, peace and prosperity. He was able to describe the pathology of political behavior and its irrelevance to social process in the most elegant and convincing manner, not with poignancy and tragedy, but with beauty, grace and optimism.
In dealing with some of the most prominent institutional arrangements found in society today, Heath was able to show how they tend to work without compromise or injury to any individual person. In fact, Heath is never inclined in the slightest way toward the application of coercion as a remedy for any social insufficiency.
Readers of Citadel, Market and Altar will find at least two ways to enjoy the book. The casual reader will be pleased to contemplate Heath's prose and wisdom while browsing the book as a collection of essays. He will find Heath's visions a refreshment to his humane spirit and a nourishment to his self-esteem, engendering a sense of pride in being a member of the human race. Spencer Heath's book truly exalts and celebrates human life.
The serious student of society will appreciate Heath's systematic development of his topics as a treatise. He is advised to first digest the more abstract and philosophical material contained in the author's "Prefatory Brief" and "General Premises." In this process, he will discover the exciting possibility of a natural science of society and a corresponding social technology.
Notes
1Spencer Heath died on October 7th, 1963, at Leesburg, Virginia. Our comradeship was interrupted in March of 1962, however, when in failing health he left California and returned to his native Virginia.
2Born in Vienna, Virginia in 1876, Heath completed his technical training at the Corcoran Scientific School in Washington, D.C. and went to Chicago where he embarked on a career in electrical and mechanical engineering. In 1898 he married Johanna Maria Holm, suffragist and life-long friend of Susan B. Anthony. They made their home in Washington, where Heath worked for the Navy Department by day designing coaling stations around the world while attending National University Law School at night, eventually receiving his LL.B. and LL.M. degrees. He became a patent lawyer and associated as patent counsel and engineering consultant with numerous clients including Christopher and Simon Lake, inventors of the even-keel-submerging submarine, and Emile Berliner, inventor of the flat-disk phonograph record and the loose-contact telephone transmitter. Heath assisted Berliner by designing and building the rotary blades with which Berliner demonstrated the helicopter principle for the first time, showing that rotary blades could lift the weight of an engine. This sparked in Heath an interest in aerodynamics, and he soon established research, development and manufacturing facilities for various aeronautical specialties. Prior to World War I, he developed the first machine mass production of aircraft propellers (replacing the men who stood at a bench and carved out propellers by hand) under the “Paragon” trademark, in consequence of which his American Propeller and Manufacturing Company in Baltimore supplied more than three quarters of the propellers used by the Allied governments in that conflict. Under the name “Paragon Engineers,” he developed and demonstrated at Boling Field in 1922 the first engine-powered, controllable and reversible pitch propeller. At about this time he built a home, Roadsend Gardens, on Lawyers Hill Road, Elkridge, Maryland, where he experimented in horticulture in addition to operating, until World War II, a commercial nursery specializing in ornamental evergreens. In 1929 he sold his aeronautical patents and technical facilities to Bendix Aviation Corporation with whom he continued for two years as a research engineer, retiring in 1931 to Roadsend Gardens to concentrate on research into the foundations of the natural sciences with the aim of establishing the basis for an authentic natural science of society. In 1932 he aided Oscar Geiger in founding The Henry George School of Social Science in New York City. For several years he lectured at the School and conducted public seminars on basic community organization and social functioning in terms of reciprocal energy exchange. In 1936 he privately published a monograph, Politics versus Proprietorship, presenting proprietorship as the alternative to politics and containing the first statement of the proprietary community principle. He completed his major work, Citadel, Market and Altar, in 1946, eventually publishing it through his own Science of Society Foundation, Inc. in 1957. Heath is also remembered for Progress and Poverty Reviewed, a polemic published by The Freeman in 1953 containing a critique of Henry George's land argument; for his privately printed and circulated “Solution to the Suez” (1953); and as a poet and speaker on esthetics and creativity. He was a member of The Aero Club of America, the Newcomen Society and the Society of Automotive Engineers (serving on the Engineering Standards Committee). His articles on aeronautical engineering appeared in the Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers, the Journal of the Franklin Institute and other technical journals. He was listed in International Who's Who 1947-1949 and Who's Who in the East 1948-1951. He made his home at Roadsend Gardens, Elkridge, Maryland, and maintained an office at 11 Waverly Place, New York City. He was survived by three daughters, Marguerite McConkey, Lucile McCallum and Beatrice O’Connell. For further information contact his literary executor, Spencer Heath McCallum, The Heather Foundation (E-mail address: [email protected])
3Alvin Lowi, Jr., “An Elementary Concept of Action from a Physics Viewpoint,” Heather Foundation Technical Note, November 16, 1980 (San Pedro, Calif.: The Heather Foundation, 1980).
4Human Action (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947).
5Spencer H. McCallum, personal communication, June 3, 1996.
6The recent recognition of this process at work among the long-brutalized populations of Eastern Europe and Asia provides observational evidence of the strength of Heath's theory. Were he still around to apprehend the changes now in evidence, he would not be at all surprised.
7Friedrich Hayek, Denationalization of Money--The Argument Refined, 3d ed. (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1990), summary on back cover.
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