Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

THE NEW AGE 69

by fear or “greed of gain.” Countering the criticism that such a society was impractical and impossible, Carpenter referred to

_...the human body itself, that marvellous epitome and mirror of the universe. . . . It is composed of a myriad of cells, members, organs, compacted into a living unity. A healthy body is the most perfect society conceivable. What does the hand say when a piece of work is demanded of it? Does it bargain first for what reward it is to receive, and refuse to move until it has secured satisfactory terms, or the foot decline to take us on a journey till it knows what special gain is to accrue to it thereby? Not so; but each limb and cell does the work which is before it to do, and (such is the utopian law) the fact of its doing the work causes the circulation to flow to it, and it is nourished and fed in proportion to its service. And we have to ask whether the same may not be the law of a healthy human society??!

It seems clear that Carpenter was referring to the human organism as a model for the healthy socialist society, as did Mitrinovi¢ in certain passages of his writing. In others, however, he referred to the world as a developing organism in quite a dogmatic and assertive manner as if it were actually so. This apparently cavalier approach could be explained in terms not only of pragmatism but also the theory of “fictions” in Hans Vaihinger’s The Philosophy of As If. In developing his theory of ideational shifts Vaihinger noted a discernible tendency for certain ideas, such as the religious notion of God, to be initially treated as dogma, as the expression of unquestionable truth; then, for the quality of conviction to be eroded so that the dogma was gradually relegated to the status of hypothesis; and finally the idea of God to be revealed as so full of contradictions that the idea was treated as a fiction. With respect to other ideas, particularly scientific ones, there was an opposite movement: an idea was proposed and treated as a fiction, eventually taking on the status of a working hypothesis, and finally becoming accepted as dogma, as the truth.

Following Solovyov and, indeed, Comte, Mitrinovi¢ put forward as a hypothesis the idea of the world and humanity as a developing organism. This could be regarded as a ‘creative fiction, a source of insight in the sense in which Vaihinger developed his theory of fictions. As such the idea was not without value as an aid to the affirmation of a common humanity sharing a single world and an inter-related fate. However, if such an immanent potential was to be realised, it required people to act as if it were true. If people, through faith, could act on the idea, then it could be created as fact. As William James observed, “There are cases... . . where a fact cannot come at all unless a preliminary faith exists in its coming.”?? So