El progreso y los espacios de tiempo

The aim of man to lengthen the duration of life is about to be achieved although not directly by increasing the number of years, but indirectly by intensifying the annual rhythm of life. Although it is true that such an increase in the volume of life shortens its length, it must be taken into consideration that whilst the shortening takes phase in an arithmetic progression, the rhythm of life increases in geometric progression. Consequently the final result is positive: life today is longer than before. This consideration leads to the obvious conclusion that our calendar units, day and year, are unsuitable measures for the volume of life and we have to find some other kind of scales. The system of measuring the social phenomena by dividing the time in periods is an optical error. It is not possible to judge chronologically different phenomena by the same standard, once the changes in the rhythm are considered. In the historical vision which the new temporal optics suggests, a calendar period appears as very long in the past, whereas in the future it is short and full of life. Would these conclusions be taken into consideration, many anomalies of our social system would be avoided. A proof of its discordant with these dynamic ideas, is the social incomprehension of the increasing claims of labour for less working hours and higher wages. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas