Consistent Character

Consistent Character Human civilization is really just an extension of nature: man takes simple matter and converts it into buildings, machines, factories, industrial plants and all the other artifacts of the modern world. What enables him to do this is the fact that all things have been invested by nature with certain consistent properties. Once man has discovered these natural properties, he is able to use them to his own advantage. These properties make up the character of a thing; they are absolutely predictable: everything in nature can be relied upon to act in a certain way. All the advances of human civilization are the result of this predictability. Any change in the properties of basic matter, or unpredictability in its character, would reduce the whole of human civilization to ruins. If one wants to build a bridge across a river, one uses steel because one knows one can rely on the strength of that metal to hold up the bridge; if steel turned out to be as soft as wax, the whole edifice would crash into the water. For the construction of buildings one uses bricks and cement, which one is sure will solidify into a firm structure; but if stones and cement were like a pile of sand, the buildings would collapse. One knows that when magnetic field and motion come together the resultant movement of electrons will produce electricity; if this did not happen, the world would suddenly be submerged in darkness. Such occurrences would mean that things had lost their specific character and the building of civilization would then become impossible. Human civilization can only be fashioned when the things that are essential to it do what is expected of them—while they maintain their basic character. What good would an ice-factory be, for instance, if the water that was put into it