18 References and Dedication
2It will be seen that time or space, which is the same thing, is ever shortened with progress, until it fairly flies. In the spiritual abstract, however, that is the spiritual abstract enterable only in the name of all, or unselfishly, there is no time. The spirit is not temporal. Mind is of the spiritual; the brain is temporal. No time may be lost in meditation, so long as it involves earnest search for the betterment of mankind, beyond which no conscious thought may go. This is a strange but absolute truth.
3 Aesthetics are of the brain, the material microphone between the abstract and the material. Aesthetics are but the snobbish gymnastics of the formula champions. The formula aesthetic rushes headlong and hoggishly, through as many books plays, galleries, and garden (catalogues) as he may deem to be voguish or decorative to his list of accomplishments, gleaning the inconsequentialities that superfluously temporize the author’s harmony of thought. The true thinkers, perceiving that one may never learn to know all the leaves of the tree, ere the first has fallen and been replaced by a new one, learn to seek rather the very fountain head of thought and its manner of creation. Knowing the basis of thinking and with the abstract perspective so gained, may thought be made to following unerringly through any course.
4 The material body, however, must not be neglected or wasted. Let us have no philosophy that allows of waste. No long haired, unwashed, ill fed philosophers are excusable today. There is no time composition more marvelous than the human body. It is a composition of a million years’ development. To waste the body is to waste time inexcusably. To kill it is rightfully the worst of crimes. War is no license for murder. Once more everything must balance. Keep body in perfect running condition. Think unselfishly and make creative responsibility unto yourself, born of confidence and truth. Both materially and mentally the new home is essential to creation.
5 It will further be newly apparent that there need be no fear of absolute individualism. The latter is attainable only through strict adherence to truth. Inasmuch there is only one truth, cooperative progress is automatically and economically born of pure individualism. The result is sympathetic concordant movement, instead of the customarily pictured chaos.
6 Remember we must translate philosophy to temporal demonstrations. This involves fourth dimension thinking and industrial projection. We must have creative cooperation of those who think truthfully to induce industry to provide the new home. Cooperative testimonials from well known publicists can convince the industrialist. The latter by the very law of economics ‘‘Leaves it to the experts’’, or thinkers. The industrialist, like his machines, if successful, is, and has to be, absolutely under control. Point him at a goal and, if it is a clear road, he and his machines will travel successfully to that goal. Industry does not want new ideas from within. How many bright-eyed, pink-cheeked boys bump their heads against this unseen wall, is legion. .
7 How very true is it, that the most successful industrialists, or more often their banking guardians, are so keenly aware of this that they stifle the very harmony and creation within themselves, to such an extent as they may have it. To that extent, for all must balance, must they burst out of their self-consciousness in one manner or another. So self-conscious are they of their material importance, that they do not realize that they are being motivated by forces far stronger than their material control and therefore mistaking the results for a weakness, hypocritically hide it. To the uninitiated world, the clandestine antics of its bankers, who as a class laugh far more heartily in ‘‘boudoir’’ or bar, than in the environs of their own family drawing room, where ‘‘good form’’ of the keeping up with the Joneses variety permits of no let down, would make the unself-conscious intimacies of the artist’s ‘‘Bohemia’’, generally considered ‘‘loose’’, pale as the lilly before the forest fire. In the later years the somewhat mellowed harmony of the banker so often vents itself in art collections of great glory. On the other hand the modern ‘‘Artists,’’ most irreproachable from a rowdy standpoint, have so far removed themselves, as a class, from material considerations, as to be quite as unbalanced as the banker in the other direction. Particularly is this true of the architects, who would everyone be a Michael Angelo, yet fail to perceive the great material knowledge that balanced that great artist’s harmony. The architectural profession, that has guided the expenditure of nearly forty three billion dollars (Ten times the present real estate value of the city of Chicago) since the war, is at present discussing, hesitatingly, the advisability of a business course in the architectural schools. The new method of fourth dimensional design will, fortunately, bring out creative genius rather than break it, as never before, with balance for both classes.
8 Industry itself to function well must be as nearly mechanical as possible. It eventually will be completely so, and mankind freed permanently from manual labor. For fuel, the industrialist must have his economic incentive, which is capital gain. It is for this reason that we ask WRITTEN COMMENT, from YOU, as a temporal creative gesture that will accentuate the self starter of the new home industry.
9 Lest it be considered as prejudicial, no suggestion of immediate reward is being proffered for such helpful commentary. It is unfortunate that the very demand of economic survival should possibly bar unrestrained comment. On second thought none should be contaminated with such misgivings as to the decency that asks this help. It is for this same non-prejudicial consideration that the authorship and directing control of 4-D is and will be kept anonymous. The ability to provoke helpful comment is being left to the subject matter itself. The subject matter must further be the warranty of the good faith, by virtue of which it has been compiled and by which it will be controlled, bespeaking your comments, unreserved for fear of undesirable exploitation.
10 It is worthy of note that almost every philosophical statement herein contained, was to all intents and purposes inwardly conceived, rather than outwardly acquired. It would seem that this is the only valuable and lasting way in which such truths may be had.
11 Due to the fervent desire to make no mistakes in the final presentation of this subject, lest through imperfection its fulfillment be retarded, much time has elapsed since its conception. During this time, in addition to the compilation of accurate material formulae covering the ramifications of the subject, the following references are amongst those which have been explored and found to apply. Some of them are pertinent negatively, some positively. So insistently do they press the question that they are listed as a guide: For instance, of the less obvious Galsworthy’s ‘‘Silver Spoon’’ and ‘‘White Monkey’’, as well as St. John Irvine’s ‘‘Changing Winds’’ touch continually on the subject of the overcrowded British Isles, unemployment, governmental and nationalistic futures, and the futility of war. The mechanical discourses are obvious, while Christopher Morley’s ‘‘I Know a Secret’’ bespeaks as well the secret inspiration of this essay.
12 Numbered copies of this essay are being sent to all those contemporaries whose writings are listed and whose interests permit of unbiased consideration; as well as to other publicists, whose declarations have shown them to be attuned to the question.
13 Inasmuch as the 4 D Home is an eventuality and is most pertinent to the architectural profession, this introduction of the subject is being made at the 1928 Annual Convention of the American Institute of Architects at St. Louis. Before another year brings forth their convention again will the industry be a thriving child, and in no way so mutable to their wishes.
14 Ten years after its conclusion we are apprised with the numerals, almost beyond comprehension, indicative of the cost of the great world war. 37, Million lives, says the League of Nations’ report, and a far less consequential 362 and 1/2 billions of dollars was its toll. Being very materialistic, (considering our previously disclosed new time dimension law of economics, as applied to the value of a life, that is its temporal half, and placing the extremely low rate of $20. per week, during the mature 25 years of working ability on each of these lives. Each one may be valued at 26, thousand dollars. Such a valuation makes the mortality loss, translated into dollars 962, Billion, or three times the monetary loss. The total monetary or capital loss of the two is 1-1/3 trillions of dollars.
15 The annual income of the United States at its present prosperous rate is quoted as 100 billion dollars, or but one thirteenth of the war loss. On the basis of time saving ability of capital (machinery of organization) at the time of the war, this loss is equivalent to the world’s income for ages past. This is a disgusting manner of graphic portrayal, but childishly sweet, beside the ghastliness of the war itself. Another war, with the mechanical control of the material at such peak of expertness, may easily foretell complete destruction of life. What for glory of war?
16 Must we ‘‘aesthetically’’ chew our historical, stylistic, formulatic, cuds in mournful contemplation of these facts, ever and anon inscribing one more self conscious last rite, one more cenotaph? Was it for these posthumous artistic creations (tombs to the unknown soldiers, etc.) that the 37 million lives were given? Those reminiscent of the days, when some real advertising copy was written by our best minds, in the form of war posters, will recall that these people were exorted by the political controls to give their lives in the name of Democracy.—the spirit of individualism.
17 How vapid is the word aestheticism in the presence of the harmony of a lovely laughing child, or a sunlit flower bed. Aestheticism finds, so-called, beauty, even in a lie. Aestheticism and atheism are verbally unrelated, but in the name of faith there is no recognition of God in the smug complacency of the former. Must we then aesthetically deny the new industrial, harmonious, decentralized, drudgery proof home of democracy, that alone can build up the surplus of individualism that can forever withstand the onslaughts of self-conscious mob tremors.
18 To the radio correspondence reception ‘‘fellow’’ of Harvard-Oxford-Stanford, et al., in his world floating university, will there be no self-conscious mysterious, awe-striking, disproportionment of life’s values created by smugly supported, lace and portière swoggled clerics, groveling on their fat bellies as they ‘‘lay hands’’ on cornerstones of another dormitory for themselves, as a good show for the poor drudge wretches whose faith is exploited in support of them. It is nausea of such antics without thoughtful remedy, that labels itself ‘‘atheist.’’
19 In addition to the prose references, a 3,000 page scrap book of photographs and advertisements showing the fourth dimensional progress of various industries throughout the world, with architectural monstrosities and inefficiencies, as well as delights, has been progressively assembled for study of those actively to be connected with the new undertaking. Even charity must today be put on a paying, economic, or endowed basis. (The endowed funds being in turn redelivered to industry to partake of the earning cycle). Pictured advertising, with its economically limited space, must be the very essence of economic indicators. When one has learned to read behind ‘‘down talk’’ to the public or the self-consciousness of the copy writers, one may perceive therein the story of progress. When will industry’s marketing counselors, whose advice motivates the virtually inanimate machinery of industry, learn to heed the voice of a young public that purchases outright ten additions of as lovely and abstract a book as ‘‘The Bridge of San Luis Rey’’ in three months, let alone the thousands who read it through libraries, public or commercial? When will these counselors become wise enough to take a page from such philosophy as that of the Transcendentalists wherein is recognized the fact that all are born common custodians of the harmony of art and truth, and that all who can be brought to read and ponder may be ‘‘talked up’’ to with all sincerity? When they stop ‘‘talking down’’ to this back bone of the market and recognize individualism, honestly, fearlessly and in good humor, will they everlastingly benefit mankind. You can talk simply and to the point without ‘‘talking down’’. This egotistical vein is but another of the last feudalistic cries of the money that first financed industry, inadvertently, in the financing of its wars of suppression. That very industry has run away from feudalism and established the good faith of individualism. That individualism will permanently be established when it is properly housed, not before. Such housing must, we repeat, consider the very essence of temporal affairs - TIME - harnessed.
20 LIFE IS THE SPIRIT INCARNATE IN TIME—In our segregated function designing must we forevermore dismiss ‘‘corner’’ - ‘‘grave’’ - or other stone from Life’s housing. Such is our challenge to petrified aestheticism, with its babbling of ‘‘frozen music’’ and ‘‘sermons in stone’’.
21 Such is our material solution of permanent peace and good will in LIFE on EARTH.