CONSISTENT CHARACTER A Man’s Worth Depends On This Ability

CONSISTENT CHARACTER T HE edifice of 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 artefacts of the modern world. What enables him to do this is the fact that all matter has been invested by nature with certain constant 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 substance; 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 we want to build a bridge across a river, we can use steel because we know we can rely on the strength of steel to hold up the bridge; if steel turned out to be as soft as wax the whole construction would crash into the water. For construction of buildings we use bricks and cement, which we are sure will solidify into a firm structure; if stones and cement were like a pile of sand, these buildings would collapse. We know that when a magnetic field and motion come together the resultant movement of electrons will produce electricity; if this did not happen, the world would suddenly be plunged into 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 turned into steam instead of ice? How could cars and other machines be produced if iron cast into furnaces refused to melt? Just as the things which contribute to human civilization have to display certain properties for civilization to flourish, so too the individuals who constitute human society have to do what is expected of them for Society is only as good as the individuals who constitute it.