The Ayn Rand Lexicon - Objectivism From A To Z Part 22

Sacrifice is the surrender of that which you value in favor of that which you don't.... It is not a sacrifice to renounce the unwanted. It is not a sacrifice to give your life to others, if death is your personal desire. To achieve the virtue of sacrifice, you must want to live, you must love it, you must burn with pa.s.sion for this earth and for all the splendor it can give you-you must feel the twist of every knife as it slashes your desires away from your reach and drains your love out of your body. It is not mere death that the morality of sacrifice holds out to you as an ideal, but death by slow torture.

[G5, FNI, 172; pb 140.]

You may also find it hard to believe that anyone could advocate the things Kant is advocating. If you doubt it, I suggest that you look up the references given and read the original works. Do not seek to escape the subject by thinking: "Oh, Kant didn't mean it!" He did....

Kant is the most evil man in mankind's history.

["Brief Summary," TO, Sept. 1971, 4.]

Psychological Techniques Kant originated the technique required to sell irrational notions to the men of a skeptical, cynical age who have formally rejected mysticism without grasping the rudiments of rationality. The technique is as follows: if you want to propagate an outrageously evil idea (based on traditionally accepted doctrines), your conclusion must be brazenly clear, but your proof unintelligible. Your proof must be so tangled a mess that it will paralyze a reader's critical faculty-a mess of evasions, equivocations, obfuscations, circ.u.mlocutions, non sequiturs, endless sentences leading nowhere, irrelevant side issues, clauses, sub-clauses and sub-sub-clauses, a meticulously lengthy proving of the obvious, and big chunks of the arbitrary thrown in as self-evident, erudite references to sciences, to pseudo-sciences, to the never-to-be-sciences, to the untraceable and the unprovable-all of it resting on a zero: the absence of definitions. I offer in evidence the Critique of Pure Reason.

["An Untiled Letter," PWNI, 141; pb 116.]

If "genius" denotes extraordinary ability, then Kant may be called a genius in his capacity to sense, play on and perpetuate human fears, irrationalities and, above all, ignorance. His influence rests not on philosophical but on psychological factors.

["Causality Versus Duty," PWNI, 117; ph 98.]

The philosophy of Kant is a systematic rationalization of every major psychological vice. The metaphysical inferiority of this world (as a "phenomenal" world of mere "appearances"), is a rationalization for the hatred of reality. The notion that reason is unable to perceive reality and deals only with "appearances," is a rationalization for the hatred of reason; it is also a rationalization for a profound kind of epistemological egalitarianism which reduces reason to equality with the futile puttering of "idealistic" dreamers. The metaphysical superiority of the "noumenal" world, is a rationalization for the supremacy of emotions, which are thus given the power to know the unknowable by ineffable means.

The complaint that man can perceive things only through his own consciousness, not through any other kinds of consciousnesses, is a rationalization for the most profound type of second-handedness ever confessed in print: it is the whine of a man tortured by perpetual concern with what others think and by inability to decide which others he should conform to. The wish to perceive "things in themselves" unprocessed by any consciousness, is a rationalization for the wish to escape the effort and responsibility of cognition-by means of the automatic omniscience a whim-worshiper ascribes to his emotions. The moral imperative of the duty to sacrifice oneself to duty, a sacrifice without beneficiaries, is a gross rationalization for the image (and soul) of an austere, ascetic monk who winks at you with an obscenely s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure-the pleasure of breaking man's spirit, ambition, success, self-esteem, and enjoyment of life on earth. Et cetera. These are just some of the highlights.

["Philosophical Detection," PWNI, 22; pb 19.]

See also ALTRUISM; CONCEPTS; DUTY"; FAITH; IDENt.i.tY; KNOWLEDGE; LINGUISTIC a.n.a.lYSIS; LOGIC; LOGICAL POSITIVISM; MODERN ART; MYSTICISM; OBJECTIVITY; PRAGMATISM; PRIMACY of EXISTENCE vs. PRIMACY of CONSCIOUSNESS; RATIONALIZATION; REASON; RELIGION; SACRIFICE; SELF; SELFISHNESS; SELFLESSNESS; SUBJECTIVISM.

Knowledge. "Knowledge" is ... a mental grasp of a fact(s) of reality, reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation.

[ITOE, 45.].

See also CERTAINTY; EPISTEMOLOGY; LOGIC; PERCEPTION; REASON.

L.

Language. In order to be used as a single unit, the enormous sum integrated by a concept has to be given the form of a single, specific, perceptual concrete, which will differentiate it from all other concretes and from all other concepts. This is the function performed by language. Language is a code of visual-auditory symbols that serves the psycho-epistemological function of converting concepts into the mental equivalent of concretes. Language is the exclusive domain and tool of concepts. Every word we use (with the exception of proper names) is a symbol that denotes a concept, i.e., that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a certain kind.

(Proper names are used in order to identify and include particular ent.i.ties in a conceptual method of cognition. Observe that even proper names, in advanced civilizations, follow the definitional principles of genus and differentia: e.g., John Smith, with "Smith" serving as genus and "John" as differentia-or New York, U.S.A.) [ITOE, 11.].

Concepts represent a system of mental filing and cross-filing, so complex that the largest electronic computer is a child's toy by comparison. This system serves as the context, the frame-of-reference, by means of which man grasps and cla.s.sifies (and studies further) every existent he encounters and every aspect of reality. Language is the physical (visual-audible) implementation of this system.

Concepts and, therefore, language are primarily a tool of cognition-not of communication, as is usually a.s.sumed. Communication is merely the consequence, not the cause nor the primary purpose of concept-formation-a crucial consequence, of invaluable importance to men, but still only a consequence. Cognition precedes communication; the necessary pre-condition of communication is that one have something to communicate. (This is true even of communication among animals, or of communication by grunts and growls among inarticulate men, let alone of communication by means of so complex and exacting a tool as language.) The primary purpose of concepts and of language is to provide man with a system of cognitive cla.s.sification and organization, which enables him to acquire knowledge on an unlimited scale; this means: to keep order in man's mind and enable him to think.

[Ibid., 91.]

The first words a child learns are words denoting visual objects, and he retains his first concepts visually. Observe that the visual form he gives them is reduced to those essentials which distinguish the particular kind of ent.i.ties from all others-for instance, the universal type of a child's drawing of man in the form of an oval for the torso, a circle for the head, four sticks for extremities, etc. Such drawings are a visual record of the process of abstraction and concept-formation in a mind's transition from the perceptual level to the full vocabulary of the conceptual level.

There is evidence to suppose that written language originated in the form of drawings-as the pictographic writing of the Oriental peoples seems to indicate. With the growth of man's knowledge and of his power of abstraction, a pictorial representation of concepts could no longer be adequate to his conceptual range, and was replaced by a fully symbolic code.

[Ibid., 15.]

Language is a conceptual tool-a code of visual-auditory symbols that denote concepts. To a person who understands the function of language, it makes no difference what sounds are chosen to name things, provided these sounds refer to clearly defined aspects of reality. But to a tribalist, language is a mystic heritage, a string of sounds handed down from his ancestors and memorized, not understood. To him, the importance lies in the perceptual concrete, the sound of a word, not its meaning....

The learning of another language expands one's abstract capacity and vision. Personally, I speak four-or rather three-and-a-half-languages: English, French, Russian and the half is German, which I can read, but not speak. I found this knowledge extremely helpful when I began writing: it gave me a wider range and choice of concepts, it showed me four different styles of expression, it made me grasp the nature of language as such, apart from any set of concretes.

(Speaking of concretes, I would say that every civilized language has its own inimitable power and beauty, but the one I love is English-the language of my choice, not of my birth. English is the most eloquent, the most precise, the most economical and, therefore, the most powerful. English fits me best-but I would be able to express my ident.i.ty in any Western language.) ["Global Balkanization," pamphlet, 8.]

The Miracle Worker by William Gibson ... tells the story of how Annie Sullivan brought Helen Keller to grasp the nature of language....

I suggest that you read The Miracle Worker and study its implications.... this particular play is an invaluable lesson in the fundamentals of a rational epistemology.

I suggest that you consider Annie Sullivan's t.i.tanic struggle to arouse a child's conceptual faculty by means of a single sense, the sense of touch, then evaluate the meaning, motive and moral status of the notion that man's conceptual faculty does not require any sensory experience.

I suggest that you consider what an enormous intellectual feat Helen Keller had to perform in order to develop a full conceptual range (including a college education, which required more in her day than it does now), then judge those normal people who learn their first, perceptual-level abstractions without any difficulty and freeze on that level, and keep the higher ranges of their conceptual development in a chaotic fog of swimming, indeterminate approximations, playing a game of signals without referents, as Helen Keller did at first, but without her excuse. Then check on whether you respect and how carefully you employ your priceless possession: language.

And, lastly, I suggest that you try to project what would have happened if, instead of Annie Sullivan, a s.a.d.i.s.t had taken charge of Helen Keller's education. A s.a.d.i.s.t would spell "water" into Helen's palm, while making her touch water, stones, flowers and dogs interchangeably; he would teach her that water is called "water" today, but "milk" tomorrow; he would endeavor to convey to her that there is no necessary connection between names and things, that the signals in her palm are a game of arbitrary conventions and that she'd better obey him without trying to understand.

If this projection is too monstrous to hold in one's mind for long, remember that this is what today's academic philosophers are doing to the young-to minds as confused, as plastic and almost as helpless (on the higher conceptual levels) as Helen Keller's mind was at her start.

["Kant Versus Sullivan," PWNI, 109; pb 90.]

See also COMMUNICATION; CONCEPT-FORMATION; CONCEPTS; GRAMMAR; LINGUISTIC a.n.a.lYSIS; PERCEPTION; PSYCHO. EPISTEMOLOGY; REASON; WORDS.

Law, Objective and Non-Objective. All laws must be objective (and objectively justifiable): men must know clearly, and in advance of taking an action, what the law forbids them to do (and why), what const.i.tutes a crime and what penalty they will incur if they commit it.

["The Nature of Government," VOS, 149; pb 110.]

The retaliatory use of force requires objective rules of evidence to establish that a crime has been committed and to prove who committed it, as well as objective rules to define punishments and enforcement procedures. Men who attempt to prosecute crimes, without such rules, are a lynch mob. If a society left the retaliatory use of force in the hands of individual citizens, it would degenerate into mob rule, lynch law and an endless series of b.l.o.o.d.y private feuds or vendettas.

If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an inst.i.tution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules.

This is the task of a government-of a proper government-its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government.

A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control-i.e., under objectively defined laws.

[Ibid., 147; pb 109.]

When men are caught in the trap of non-objective law, when their work, future and livelihood are at the mercy of a bureaucrat's whim, when they have no way of knowing what unknown "influence" will crack down on them for which unspecified offense, fear becomes their basic motive, if they remain in the industry at all-and compromise, conformity, staleness, dullness, the dismal grayness of the middle-of-the-road are all that can be expected of them. Independent thinking does not submit to bureaucratic edicts, originality does not follow "public policies," integrity does not pet.i.tion for a license, heroism is not fostered by fear, creative genius is not summoned forth at the point of a gun.

Non-objective law is the most effective weapon of human enslavement: its victims become its enforcers and enslave themselves.

["Vast Quicksands," TON, July 1963, 25.]

That which cannot be formulated into an objective law, cannot be made the subject of legislation-not in a free country, not if we are to have "a government of laws and not of men." An undefineable law is not a law, but merely a license for some men to rule others.

[Ibid., 28.]

It is a grave error to suppose that a dictatorship rules a nation by means of strict, rigid laws which are obeyed and enforced with rigorous, military precision. Such a rule would be evil, but almost bearable; men could endure the harshest edicts, provided these edicts were known, specific and stable; it is not the known that breaks men's spirits, but the unpredictable. A dictatorship has to be capricious; it has to rule by means of the unexpected, the incomprehensible, the wantonly irrational; it has to deal not in death, but in sudden death; a state of chronic uncertainty is what men are psychologically unable to bear.

["Ant.i.trust: The Rule of Unreason," TON. Feb. 1962, 5.]

An objective law protects a country's freedom; only a non-objective law can give a statist the chance he seeks: a chance to impose his arbitrary will-his policies, his decisions, his interpretations, his enforcement, his punishment or favor-on disarmed, defenseless victims.

[Ibid.. 5.]

The threat of sudden destruction, of unpredictable retaliation for unnamed offenses, is a much more potent means of enslavement than explicit dictatorial laws. It demands more than mere obedience; it leaves men no policy save one: to please the authorities; to please-blindly, uncritically, without standards or principles; to please-in any issue, matter or circ.u.mstance, for fear of an unknowable, unprovable vengeance.

[Ibid., 8.]

See also ANARCHISM; ANt.i.tRUST LAWS; CONSt.i.tUTION; CRIME; DICTATORSHIP; GOVERNMENT; INDIVIDUAL, RIGHTS; RETALIATORY FORCE; RETROACTIVE I.AW; STATISM.

Learning. Men can learn from one another, but learning requires a process of thought on the part of every individual student. Men can cooperate in the discovery of new knowledge, but such cooperation requires the independent exercise of his rational faculty by every individual scientist. Man is the only living species that can transmit and expand his store of knowledge from generation to generation; but such transmission requires a process of thought on the part of the individual recipients.

["What Is Capitalism?" CUI. 16.]

All learning involves a process of automatizing, i.e., of first acquiring knowledge by fully conscious, focused attention and observation, then of establishing mental connections which make that knowledge automatic (instantly available as a context), thus freeing man's mind to pursue further, more complex knowledge.

[ITOE, 86.].

There are two different methods of learning: by memorizing and by understanding. The first belongs primarily to the perceptual level of a human consciousness, the second to the conceptual.

The first is achieved by means of repet.i.tion and concrete-bound a.s.sociation (a process in which one sensory concrete leads automatically to another, with no regard to content or meaning). The best ill.u.s.tration of this process is a song which was popular some twenty years ago, called "Mairzy Doats." Try to recall some poem you had to memorize in grade school; you will find that you can recall it only if you recite the sounds automatically, by the "Mairzy Doats" method; if you focus on the meaning, the memory vanishes. This form of learning is shared with man by the higher animals: all animal training consists of making the animal memorize a series of actions by repet.i.tion and a.s.sociation.

The second method of learning-by a process of understanding-is possible only to man. To understand means to focus on the content of a given subject (as against the sensory-visual or auditory-form in which it is communicated), to isolate its essentials, to establish its relationship to the previously known, and to integrate it with the appropriate categories of other subjects. Integration is the essential part of understanding.

The predominance of memorizing is proper only in the first few years of a child's education, while he is observing and gathering perceptual material. From the time he reaches the conceptual level (i.e., from the time he learns to speak), his education requires a progressively larger scale of understanding and progressively smaller amounts of memorizing.

["The Comprachicos," NL, 207.]

Learning is a conceptual process; an educational method devised to ignore, by-pa.s.s and contradict the requirements of conceptual development, cannot arouse any interest in learning. The "adjusted" are bored because they are unable actively to absorb knowledge. The independent are bored because they seek knowledge, not games of "cla.s.s projects" or group "discussions." The first are unable to digest their lessons; the second are starved.

[Ibid., 216.]

The process of forming, integrating and using concepts is not an automatic, but a volitional process-i.e., a process which uses both new and automatized material, but which is directed volitionally. It is not an innate, but an acquired skill; it has to be learned-it is the most crucially important part of learning-and all of man's other capacities depend on how well or how badly he learns it.

This skill does not pertain to the particular content of a man's knowledge at any given age, but to the method by which he acquires and organizes knowledge-the method by which his mind deals with its content. The method programs his subconscious computer, determining how efficiently, lamely or disastrously his cognitive processes will function.

[Ibid., 193.]

See also AUTOMATIZATION; CONCEPTS; EDUCATION; INTEGRATION (MENTAL); SUBCONSCIOUS; UNDERSTANDING.

Leftists. See Rightists vs. Leftists.

"Liberals." The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism. For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded, and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of "conservatism" and "liberalism" which had lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men.

The goal of the "liberals"-as it emerges from the record of the past decades-was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot-by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli. (The goal of the "conservatives" was only to r.e.t.a.r.d that process.) [" 'Extremism,' or The Art of Smearing," CUI, 178.]

The most timid, frightened, conservative defenders of the status quo -of the intellectual status quo-are today's liberals (the leaders of the conservatives never ventured into the realm of the intellect). What they dread to discover is the fact that the intellectual status quo they inherited is bankrupt, that they have no ideological base to stand on and no capacity to construct one. Brought up on the philosophy of Pragmatism, they have been taught that principles are unprovable, impractical or non-existent-which has destroyed their ability to integrate ideas, to deal with abstractions, and to see beyond the range of the immediate moment. Abstractions, they claim, are "simplistic" (another anti-concept); myopia is sophisticated. "Don't polarize!" and "Don't rock the boat!" are expressions of the same kind of panic.

["Credibility and Polarization," ARL, I, 1, 2.]

In the 1930's, the "liberals" had a program of broad social reforms and a crusading spirit, they advocated a planned society, they talked in terms of abstract principles, they propounded theories of a predominantly socialistic nature-and most of them were touchy about the accusation that they were enlarging the government's power; most of them were a.s.suring their opponents that government power was only a temporary means to an end-a "n.o.ble end," the liberation of the individual from his bondage to material needs.

Today, n.o.body talks of a planned society in the "liberal" camp; long-range programs, theories, principles, abstractions, and "n.o.ble ends" are not fashionable any longer. Modern "liberals" deride any political concern with such large-scale matters as an entire society or an economy as a whole; they concern themselves with single, concrete-bound, range-of-the-moment projects and demands, without regard to cost, context, or consequences. "Pragmatic"-not "idealistic"-is their favorite adjective when they are called upon to justify their "stance," as they call it, not "stand." They are militantly opposed to political philosophy; they denounce political concepts as "tags," "labels," "myths," "illusions"-and resist any attempt to "label"-i.e., to identify-their own views. They are belligerently anti-theoretical and-with a faded mantle of intellectuality still clinging to their shoulders-they are anti-intellectual. The only remnant of their former "idealism" is a tired, cynical, ritualistic quoting of shopworn "humanitarian" slogans, when the occasion demands it.

Cynicism, uncertainty, and fear are the insignia of the culture which they are still dominating by default. And the only thing that has not rusted in their ideological equipment, but has grown savagely brighter and clearer through the years, is their l.u.s.t for power-for an autocratic, statist, totalitarian government power. It is not a crusading brightness, it is not the l.u.s.t of a fanatic with a mission-it is more like the gla.s.sy-eyed brightness of a somnambulist whose stuporous despair has long since swallowed the memory of his purpose, but who still clings to his mystic weapon in the stubborn belief that "there ought to be a law," that everything will be all right if only somebody will pa.s.s a law, that every problem can be solved by the magic power of brute force.

["The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus," CUI, 209.]

The majority of those who are loosely identified by the term "liberals" are afraid to let themselves discover that what they advocate is statism. They do not want to accept the full meaning of their goal; they want to keep all the advantages and effects of capitalism, while destroying the cause, and they want to establish statism without its necessary effects. They do not want to know or to admit that they are the champions of dictatorship and slavery.

["Conservatism: An Obituary," CUI, 194.]

For more than fifty years, the West's liberal intellectuals have proclaimed their love for mankind, while being bored by the rivers of blood pouring out of the Soviet Union. Professing their compa.s.sion for human suffering, they have none for the victims in Russia. Unable or unwilling to give up their faith in collectivism, they evade the existence of Soviet atrocities, of terror, secret police and concentration camps-and publish glowing tributes to Soviet technology, production and art. Posturing as humanitarians, they man the barricades to fight the "injustice," "exploitation," "repression," and "persecution" they claim to find in America; as to the full reality of such things in Russia, they keep silent.

[Susan Ludel, review of Anatoly Marchenko's My Testimony, TO, July 1970, I5.]

See also CAPITALISM; COLLECTIVISM; COMPROMISE; "CONSERVATIVES"; "CONSERVATIVES" vs. "LIBERALS"; CYNICISM; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; MIXED ECONOMY; NEW LEFT; PRAGMATISM; SOCIALISM; SOVIET RUSSIA; STATISM; WELFARE STATE.

"Libertarians." For the record, I shall repeat what I have said many times before: I do not join or endorse any political group or movement. More specifically, I disapprove of, disagree with, and have no connection with, the latest aberration of some conservatives, the so-called "hippies of the right," who attempt to snare the younger or more careless ones of my readers by claiming simultanteously to be followers of my philosophy and advocates of anarchism. Anyone offering such a combination confesses his inability to understand either. Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the collectivist movement, where it properly belongs.

["Brief Summary," TO, Sept. 1971, 1.]

Above all, do not join the wrong ideological groups or movements, in order to "do something." By "ideological" (in this context), I mean groups or movements proclaiming some vaguely generalized, undefined (and, usually, contradictory) political goals. (E.g., the Conservative Party, which subordinates reason to faith, and subst.i.tutes theocracy for capitalism; or the "libertarian" hippies, who subordinate reason to whims, and subst.i.tute anarchism for capitalism.) To join such groups means to reverse the philosophical hierarchy and to sell out fundamental principles for the sake of some superficial political action which is bound to fail. It means that you help the defeat of your ideas and the victory of your enemies. (For a discussion of the reasons, see "The Anatomy of Compromise" in my book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.) ["What Can One Do?" PWNI, 248; pb 202.]

The "libertarians" ... plagiarize Ayn Rand's principle that no man may initiate the use of physical force, and treat it as a mystically revealed, out-of-context absolute....

In the philosophical battle for a free society, the one crucial connection to be upheld is that between capitalism and reason. The religious conservatives are seeking to tie capitalism to mysticism; the "libertarians" are tying capitalism to the whim-worshipping subjectivism and chaos of anarchy. To cooperate with either group is to betray capitalism, reason, and one's own future.

[Harry Binsw.a.n.ger, "Q & A Department: Anarchism," TOF, Aug. 1981, 12.]

See also ANARCHISM; COMPROMISE; CONTEXT-DROPPING; GOVERNMENT; PHYSICAL FORCE; SUBJECTIVISM; WHIMSIWHIM-WORSHIP.

Life. There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence-and it pertains to a single cla.s.s of ent.i.ties: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of "Life" that makes the concept of "Value" possible. It is only to a living ent.i.ty that things can be good or evil.

[GS, FNI, 147; pb 121.]

Only a living ent.i.ty can have goals or can originate them. And it is only a living organism that has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action. On the physical level, the functions of all living organisms, from the simplest to the most complex-from the nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of a man-are actions generated by the organism itself and directed to a single goal: the maintenance of the organism's life.

An organism's life depends on two factors: the material or fuel which it needs from the outside, from its physical background, and the action of its own body, the action of using that fuel properly. What standard determines what is proper in this context? The standard is the organism's life, or: that which is required for the organism's survival.

["The Objectivist Ethics," VOS, 6; pb 16.]

When applied to physical phenomena, such as the automatic functions of an organism, the term "goal-directed" is not to be taken to mean "purposive" (a concept applicable only to the actions of a consciousness) and is not to imply the existence of any teleological principle operating in insentient nature. I use the term "goal-directed," in this context, to designate the fact that the automatic functions of living organisms are actions whose nature is such that they result in the preservation of an organism's life.

[Ibid.]

In a fundamental sense, stillness is the ant.i.thesis of life. Life can be kept in existence only by a constant process of self-sustaining action. The goal of that action, the ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its every moment, is the organism's life.

[Ibid., 7; pb 16.]