1 HANS HASS ENERGON THEORY The hidden common feature in the evolution of life. All forms are similar, and none is the same as the other; and so the Chorus points at a secret law, at a holy enigma. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe We have to hurry. If we continue sleeping, Europe will, like so many great nations before it, sink-, and nobody will have understood why and wherefore. Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber Translated from the German by Elisabeth Zinschitz Originally published under the title Energon: Das verborgene Gemeinsame (1970) 2 Table of Contents Introduction PART ONE: ENERGONS AND THEIR FORMS OF ACQUISITION I The hidden common feature II Vehicles of effect III The consequences IV Lock and key V Requirement as energy source VI The framework of competitiveness VII The enigma of effectiveness PART TWO: FURTHER OUTER FRONTS I Spear and shield II The limits of will III Functional expansion IV Cycles V Horse and horseman VI Horses that are fed PART THREE: THE „INNER FRONTS“ I Ties II The origin of the „I“ III Matching IV Preservation V Sex and research VI The life flow PART FOUR: LIFE FLOW AND HUMAN BEINGS I Competition and the area of acquisition II Why and for which purpose? III The four shapes of the state IV The big wage-earners V The colourful garden VI Development VII Today and tomorrow Postscript 3 APPENDIX I The word “soul“ II Teilhard de Chardin III Marshall McLuhan IV The extended theory of evolution V Energy References 4 INTRODUCTION Nowadays everybody takes it for granted that the working structures and enterprises created by mankind are fundamentally different from animal and plant bodies. To compare a shoemaker’s workshop with a rosebush, or a millipede with an insurance company, seems to be totally absurd. In this book I want to show that reason is misleading us here. What seems to be absurd, is, in fact, reality. We are stuck in old conventional thinking patterns. What our senses and our brain want to make us believe is in many respects illusory. In biology, but also in economy, we have overlooked the very obvious connection of both areas until the present. All animals, all plants, all human working structures and all acquisitive enterprises have the same main orientation, the same vital backbone, so to speak. However different they may look, they are all geared to enhancing their energy potential. Their existence stands or falls with this specific activity. Only if they succeed in achieving an energy outcome which on average is favourable, are they able to last. They have to win more exploitable energy than they spend while working. If they have a balance of deficit, they may be able to maintain themselves through their reserves or by consuming their own structure, but if the deficit persists they will disintegrate themselves. This goes for every worm as well as every locomotive factory, for every bacterium as well as for a bank robber. Without energy there is no movement, no progress, not even for a thousandth of a second. Without energy there is no development or maintenance of any structure, no growth and no procreation. In the end no physicist has yet been able to say what energy is. We do not have the smallest clue about the nature of energy. According to the view of the world of modern nuclear physics everything leads ultimately to energy... Energy is the root of all phenomena. Energy is extremely transformable. It manifests itself as heat, as kinetic energy, as electricity and as chemical energy. Further manifestations are magnetism, gravitation, nuclear energy and energy of stationary mass. Every single one of these forms of energy can be transformed into any other, and we are now able to measure all of them. Units of energy measurement are among others ergs, calories, horse-power hours, electron volts, watt-seconds. Each one of these measures can be converted into the others. But what this extremely flexible phenomenon which is being measured here actually is, we do not know 1 It is not only that animals and plants as well as economy structures created by mankind have to win on average more energy than they spend while winning it, but they also have to be competitive . In the realm of organisms as well as in business life monopolies are hard to achieve and maintain. Almost always there are several candidates claiming a specific source of income. The consequence is that competition between these claimants decides who survives and who doesn’t. 5 Now, which distinctive features are the basis for this characteristic which we call "competitiveness"? And are these features different for plants and animals than for human economy structures, or are they the same? Is it possible to measure them? In animals and plants we find "individuals" and "species". Specific individuals may perish through competition or environmental impact, but that does not mean that their species become extinct as well. Small fir-trees die continuously, and gazelles perish, but their species last: as very specific structures in space and time not only capable of a acquisitive activity, but also of competitiveness. It is only when the environment changes in such a way that the type of structure cannot achieve a favourable energy balance, that the species is not able to survive: it "perishes". In evolution this has happened over and over again. Also in this respect the same happens in human economy structures. Here too it is possible to distinguish between the type of gaining activity on the one hand and the working individual on the other. Here too a working person may lose his employment or a company may go to the wall, but the specific type of enterprise or profession will not disappear because of that. Here also we have structures in space and time which are competitive and capable of acquisitive activity within a certain environment. If these environmental factors change – specifically the productivity of the source of income - then these structures are doomed. It has happened in the course of human history that specific types of professions and enterprises have disappeared as well. As there is no common name for energy gaining systems, I call each one of them an "energon". These energons are consequently not defined by a specific appearance, but rather by a specific effect. In this book I avoid the word "system" because it is used in a different sense and therefore liable to be misunderstood. In natural science it is quite customary to denote living creatures as systems - as "living systems". In economy, however, we denote the higher political- economical construction as a system, and not the individual economy structure. There we speak about planned economy or market economy "systems", but no one would think of calling a goldsmith with his professional tools and other accessories or even an opera singer a "system". Recently cybernetics have also started having their impact in business management, but they have not got as far as smaller, simpler economy structures. The new notion "energon" bridges this gap. Every energon is a "structure" which is based on the division of labour. It consists of functional units which achieve a favourable energy balance because they work together. In higher plants and animals these subordinate units are tissues and organs. Where a working person is concerned, apart from the natural organs in his body, artificially created units (tools, equipment and similar things) are added. In companies consisting of numerous professional structures, these subordinate units are employees, machines, equipment, departments etc. The essential point is that in any case it is not actually the appearance of these units that matters or the way they function – but rather the achieved effect 6 A man from the business world is more familiar with this way of looking at things than a biologist. In companies it happens quite often that certain tasks can be carried out by a human being as well as by a machine. And frequently very different procedures can lead to the same desired result. So, the structure of a subordinate unit and type of activity are merely of secondary importance. Only the effect and the expenditure are of primary importance. These two factors are the only ones which have an impact on the balance. Seen in this light, human acquisitive entities in the end do not only consist of material units, but also of effects. They are effect-structures In animals and plants the different parts are not freely interchangeable. Therefore we are used to looking at these bodies in a different way than we do with companies. But also here the appearance of the subordinate units or how they function is not really essential – it is their effect and the energy expenditure which comes with the effect. As was previously pointed out, the same result is achieved in very different ways. The echinoderms alone ( starfish, sea- urchins) have produced no less than five different types of respiratory organs. Some breathe through dimples in the abdominal wall into the abdominal cavity, others through gills close to their oral aperture, yet others through lung-like formations in their anus. What is only essential here is that the organisms receive the required amount of gas – how this happens in detail is of lesser importance. Consequently, very different procedures can lead to the same result. In arid regions for example, it is of vital importance to store water. The toad which lives in the Australian prairies by the name of Chiroleptes platycephalus stores water in its bladder, in its lymph cavities under its skin and in the abdominal cavity – it swells like a sphere, digs itself 30 centimetres into the earth, and thus it can survive a dry season. The camel, on the other hand, carries a supply of fat in its humps and wins it through chemical breakdown. 30 Kilos of fat produce about 32 litres of water. Here we see again how by means of different procedures the same results are achieved. In the end, the only thing that is essential is the effect. Consequently, animals and plants also are effect-structures. When we consider human acquisitive structures to be so entirely different from plant and animal bodies, this is mainly due to three aspects: their components consist to a large extent in non-organic material (for example machines); they are not grown together; and they are of a completely different origin. I will try to show that these differences are not fundamental. The term energon is more than a mere concept. It shows connections over which the term "living creature" – which was transferred from generation to the next without thinking – has drawn a veil. I will show that the structure of all energons – necessarily – is set up according to the same laws and that the competitiveness, which is so decisive, for all of them is based on the same principles. These are not metaphysical, mystical ideas, but concretely measurable connections 2 Also governmental institutions, as I will show, are energons – or parts of it. Their structure, however, is more difficult to understand. Therefore we will only look at them towards the end of this book. 7 However, I do not only assert that plants, animals, human acquisitive entities and governmental institutions have a common structure which until now has remained hidden to us, but I will prove that all these energons are related through tribal affinity. Until now we have been convinced that, for the time being, humankind is the peak of the evolution of organisms, i.e. that we are a kind of end, if not goal, of organismic development, "the culmination of creation". Evolution has developed beyond humankind a long time ago. It continues in the professional entities, business organisations and governmental institutions – in which humankind is only a kind of controlling germ cell. That is the starting point of the ideas that are to be presented here. The energon theory is at its centre. In the first part of the book I will specify my definition of the term energon and give an overall view of all books which deal with similar topics. Then follow the principle arguments of my theories as well as an overall view of the acquisitive forms of the energons and their evolution. At the centre of the second and third part there stands the question whether competitiveness can be measured. At first the factors having an effect from outside, and then the problems arising within each energon. The fourth part is about the development as a whole. There I try to describe the state of the art of our present economic and political situation. It is certainly problematic to connect the presentation of a theory immediately with its practical application for problems in the present. A theory may be right, but its application may be wrong, then the theory suffers from this application. On the other hand, critics, even when they give a very short summary of this book, may try to apply it. Therefore I think that I can just as well do it myself. Konrad Lorenz once said that the elements of a whole can only be understood all at once, or not at all: in my work I was confronted with this problem. The concept of the energon induces a radically different way of looking at the habitual, and therefore it is difficult to start with the presentation at some other end. I have tried to put the material into order; this, however, means that I cannot respond immediately to every objection. Apart from this, the scope of the discussed field rather large and therefore some of what is squeezed into one chapter actually should be discussed more extensively or should actually be presented in a book of its own. Above all it seems important to me, however, to give an overall view of my theories and their most relevant consequences. My research was accomplished in a period of more than ten years. Therefore I cannot list the names of all helpers. Here I would like to express my gratitude to all of them again. In the area of business management and national economy, fields which are largely alien to a biologist, specifically the presentation by Sombart, Nichlisch and Gutenberg was most useful to me. In political science I mainly followed the works of Gierke, Kelsen, Jellinek and Krüger. For valuable information and corrections I am obliged to H. Lexa of the Institute for Industrial Business Management, and R. Reim of the Institute of Political Economy, both at the University of International Economy in Vienna. In the area of physics I was helped by H. 8 Thirring and by G. Ecker, in the area of physical chemistry by E. Broda. In my own field, zoology, I specifically thank W. Kühnelt, W. Marinelli and F. Schaller of the Uiversity of Vienna and G. Steiner from Heidelberg for his critics and information. Continuous inspiration, especially in the area of behaviour research, was given to me by my friend of many years I. Eibl-Eibelsfeldt. In botany I owe thanks to A. Biebl, B. Gessner, F. Knoll and H. Mohr as well as L. Burian. Research, especially in the historical field, was actively done for me by Mrs. M. Windisch- Graetz. I have to thank my friend Fritz Molden for agreeing to give me considerable means in order to obtain information and for having so much patience, even though he received the script many years later than originally planned. The drawings were made by Kurt Röschl. Comments: 1 See appendix V. 2 I want to point out that the affinities which is shown here do not fit into the alternative homologous – analogous. This evaluation scheme, which dominates in biology at present, is losing importance; much less obvious connections are at stake. I THE HIDDEN COMMON FEATURE How many things become one until now has not been defined by the sciences. Johann Plenge (1919) 0 A flood of facts growing each year has already drowned part of the scientist. E. von Holst (1942) 1 Who earns how much and how? We may look at this question, which comes up so frequently in daily life, on a much larger scale: How can a material structure pursue a gainful activity? What factors are essential for its success? 9 Nowadays two questions are to the fore: will Europe be able to compete with the American economic system? Will a global economic system become necessary? It seems erroneous to compare such matters with the question of how bacteria and grasshoppers succeed in increasing their power. But if you consider energy production as primary and essential, then we are definitely dealing with the same phenomenon only at different levels of integration. Following practical considerations, which I will come back to later, I distinguish four groups of energons: plants, animals, human professional entities and business organisations. For the first two groups I shall use the classification which is common in biology. The terms "professional entities" and "business organisations" require further explanation. "Professional entity" does not refer a human being per se. We do not intend to compare the genetic human body to animal and plant bodies - as has been customary in biology up to now. A human professional entity is rather the overall structure which is necessary for following a type of gainful activity (Illustration 1a.) The professional entity of a shoemaker not only consists of a human body, but also of clothes and tools, and of premises where the work is done, of a work bench, of chairs, tables, shelves, possibly of assistants, of a bank account and of several other things. This overall structure did not grow together like the organism of an animal or a plant, it is an artificial extension of the human body. It comes about by means of additional units – "artificial organs" as I call them – that a human being enhances his capacities and becomes able to produce excellent results. There is another characteristic that belongs to this entity, and this does not stem from its genetic formula: it is the ability to use all these units in an effective way. From a biological point of view it may be said that a human being, by learning and practising during his apprenticeship, builds up specific norms of action and reaction in his brain. What these "behaviour patterns" individually look like we do not yet know. There is no doubt, however, – and electrical cerebral stimulation has definitely given evidence of this – that these are concrete material structures. They can be imagined as some kind of electrical circuit, as a multitude of connections between sensory and motor ganglion cells. On the motor level there are primarily nervous impulses which are linked and which correspondingly lead to coordinated movements of the muscles. The production of a shoe – see our example – requires very specific movements of hand and body, and the shoemaker does not have the innate capacity to direct these movements. He has to learn and to "refine" them. Apart from other things he has to acquire the "knowledge" which is necessary for buying the raw material and for selling the product. So he needs further co-ordination formulas as well as information which is stored as "experiences" which are used to modify and improve individual actions. All these tiny units are stored in the brain of the shoemaker, but they are added in the same way as the tools and the chairs are. They too have to be regarded as something that enhances the genetic structure at a functional level. They are also essential elements of the professional entity 1 10 Some professions require a large amount of equipment – just think of a dentist. In other professions – e.g. a coconut picker in Polynesia – the genetic body coincides almost entirely with the professional entity, as is the case with a courier, a singer or a pickpocket. In the economic sector professional activities which are not permitted in society are usually excluded. In the context of the energon theory, however, they have to be taken into account like the authorised professions. The thief, the safe-cracker, the blackmailer, all are also energons, all are also professional entities 2 . Moral judgements and legal regulations only make a difference in so far as they change the risk which is involved in the activity. How little the professional entity and the genetic body have in common follows from the fact that one and the same person in the course of his life is able to follow two or more professions. He then develops several professional entities - one after the other. It is also possible that a person follows several professions at the same time. In that case this person is the centre of two or more professional entities, which he directs alternately (see Illustration 1b.). The multifarious professional entities which were created by human beings in the course of history are surely not less diverse than the bodies of animals and plants. Through our senses we perceive them in an entirely different way - particularly because their parts have not strongly grown together - but if we consider energy production to be a central function, then it is they whoare the evolutionary development of "living things". It is not the naked human body which continues the evolution of energy producing "plants" and "animals", but the professional structures created by human beings in which we ultimately just function as entities who build up these structures and who direct them. Figure 1 : The extension of the human body by means of artificial organs a) a professional entity. B = the totality of all entities which are necessary for specific work. H = the human being as a control centre. E = the energy output for this work. e’ = the gained energy. b) a person as the centre of two professional entities (B1 and B2). x = the artificial organs serving the two professional activities. 11 c) A person who apart from a professional entity has also built up a luxury entity. y = artificial organs which serve both the professional activity and the attainment of conveniences. l-r = energy output for the purpose of attaining conveniences(pleasure?). (The interaction: the enhancement of professional efficiency through recoveryrecuperation, thus convenience(pleasure?), is not taken into account here.) What the particular energons do with the surplus which results from their gainful activity will be discussed only marginally in this book. Animals and plants – I will come back to this later in more detail - hardly have any option other than to convert the result of their gaining activity into growth and reproduction. This changed when the professional entities arose. In their case the return can also flow into growth or into reproduction - it can however also be used for entirely different purposes by the control system called "human being" who may surround himself with further units which merely serve for his convenience or pleasure, e.g. a painting by Rembrandt, a game of chess or a sailing boat. In addition to the professional entity a human being also creates – if he wants to and if he can afford it – a "luxury entity" (see illustration 1c). The term luxury evokes negative associations and is also misleading, but I cannot think of a better term. Contemporary usage may refer to a "cultural entity", but since we also speak of agri-"culture", a purely a gainful activity, this term is not accurate. By "luxury entity" I understand therefore all additional entities which do not directly serve gainful effort. Everything a human being produces in order to enhance his pleasures and the quality of his life is included in this term 3 True, it is not always possible to draw a clear boundary between a professional entity and luxury entity. A businessman’s Mercedes is partly a professional tool, partly a means of pleasure, and apart from that serves to show that he is credit-worthy. Apart from that there is some repercussion of the luxury activity on the gainful activity: a convenience facilitates recuperation and relaxation, and can increase professional efficiency. Nevertheless the distinction can be balanced up and is also not foreign to any economist. In the legal system, especially in considering taxation, this distinction is common, and there it not insignificant at all. In daily life we realise the difference when a working person encounters hard times. Then we can see how bit by bit he gets rid of his luxury entity - and what finally remains, apart from the obligations he has for example towards his wife and his family, is the professional entity, limited to the essentials. This way – if we consider gainful activity to be a central function - we come to a rather different way of looking at human beings and their such activity. Even the working man’s wife - if she is not working herself – is then seen in a different light. Her source of income is her husband, who supports her. Eventually, her orientation towards this man, his particular nature and his wishes, is her professional entity 4 And finally there are people – at least in the non-communist countries - who live without performing any gainful activity, who live for instance on an inheritance or on social welfare. In this case we see this germ cell called human being without any professional entity. It lives on 12 foreign return, on the capital of an acquired surplus. This means that there exists no professional entity whose centre is not a human being, but there certainly are human beings with a very small professional entity or even without one 5 2 Besides plants, animals and professional entities there is a fourth large group of energons and I call this one "working organisations". Another possible denomination might be the term "working communities". Working organisations are no more than extensions of the individual human being. In their structure, which has a level of integration higher by one or more stages, professional entities develop to become functional replaceable units. The large American industrial companies, whose structure Galbraith has described so vividly, show this very clearly 6 . Unlike the classical private company founded by an entrepreneur where there is still an individual at the top, these giants are already utterly supra-individual entities with their own laws. They are not really controlled any more by the stockholders, who used profits to provide the required capital. The "technological structure" – i.e. managers, technologists and foremen – renews itself by its own authority. Just as happens in multicell organisms where a single cell merely plays a functional role, also in the typical working organisations (in the "mature" company, as Galbraith calls it) the single professional entity – and therefore the individual – is not more than a replaceable originator of the required work. If he dies, someone else will take his place. Even when someone in the upper echelon of the working system dies, the activity of these large companies is not essentially affected 7 In the case of a private company owned by an entrepreneur it is debatable whether it can still be defined as an extreme extension of a professional entity or if it already belongs to the group of the working organisations. Experience shows that a larger company does not go to the wall when the entrepreneur dies. If the shoemaker continues to expand his workshop and finally turns it into an industrial company for shoe manufacture, then, at a certain point of time, this blurred dividing-line will be crossed. The bigger the company becomes, the more the owner himself becomes a replaceable element in this system and the more the surrounding working structure imposes its will on him. The difference from the professional entity is its super-individuality. Even if it is not possible to draw a clear line I consider it appropriate and justified to make this conceptual distinction. When several companies merge to form a combine or a cartel, the development of working organisations with an even higher level of integration is possible. The state again has precedence over the professional entities, companies, combines and cartels. The entire development of the energons typically happens in a hierarchical way. The first main structure which they achieved was the cell, on the next level it was the multicell organism. In these two areas we can speak of plants or animals, depending on the type of activity. The 13 human being – emerging from the animal kingdom – then extended his genetic body and developed professional entities by means of additional units. They already represent the next level of integration. Working organisations are composed of professional entities. The highest stage of development in these working structure levels culminates in the "modern state" or in a "confederation of states" 8 3 At all times there were thinkers who recognised the state as a real organism. Plato defined the state as "a large human being", Aristoteles named it "a living creature that has a soul". The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes considered fear to be the starting point for the building of the human state and called the state "an omnivorous monster". Fichte called it "the organic manifestation of God". Schelling explained that the state was not a means to certain ends but the "construction of the absolute organism". Further advocates of the "organic" approach within political science were the philosophers G. Fechner and W. Wundt, as well as its most brilliant advocate, the jurist Otto von Gierke. The Swedish historian and theorist Rudolf Kjellen added an additional form of life to those of plants, animals and human beings: the state 9 . He called the state a "real personality with a life of its own", an organism in the biological sense. Such ideas lead to several rather superficial, anthropo-morphistic comparisons – in particular by J. Bluntschli, who even considered the state to be male (unlike the church, which he thinks is "female"). Richard Thoma spoke of an "organological ghost doctrine". Another biologist, no less a figure than Oskar Hertwig, dared to enter the tricky ground of general political science 10 . He took up Ernst Kopp, who in his book "Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik" called the state an "organism reproducing the human body". According to him, the state is a " form of organism higher than human beings". The analogies which Hertwig shows were better backed up than those of the mostly mystically oriented organologists. But he did not receive very much attention. From the point of view of the energon theory the state is – this will later be explained in more detail – a rather complicated hermaphrodite, on the one hand a human organ, on the other hand an independent energon. Following the classification outlined above, there are states which can be considered as extremely expanded professional entities of individual persons, and also others which can be classified as supra-individual objects and therefore belong to the group of working organisations. But not only in the political field were there scientists who advocated the idea that organisations created by human beings were comparable with animal and plant bodies. Philosophers as well as naturalists repeatedly came up with the idea that organised phenomena very likely share a certain principle. 14 4 Immanuel Kant was the first to express the idea of an "archetype" of all animals and plants. He wrote that a "natural history" still to be written would teach us about the "varieties" of the creatures of the "archetype" 11 . Kant considered it possible that "all species descend from one single genus". Albrecht Dürer believed in a secret law of construction which he tried to "wring out" from nature. He considered the diversity of forms to be based on an adaptation (a "reversal") of a basic form, of a "canon" the existence of which expresses itself in the similarity of all creatures. The same idea became the theme of Goethe’s efforts in the area of natural science. He searched for the "primordial plant" and for the "primordial animal"; he did not assume a common ancestor, however, but rather a common basic structure as the origin of the diversity of plants and the higher order of animals. He tried to describe these archetypes: "wo nicht den Sinnen, doch dem Geiste nach" (not according to the senses, but according to the spirit). On the basis of this point of view, looking at the hidden common features, Goethe succeeded in discovering two important things. In the area of botany he discovered the metamorphosis of the leaf: formations like thorns and tendrils, but also stamen and pistils are transformed plant leaves 12 . In zoology he discovered the human intermaxillary bone, which until then had only been detected in monkeys and other higher vertebrates, and it was considered strange that man did not have this bone. Goethe searched more precisely - and eventually found the bone 13 A famous academic dispute in Paris (in 1830) was about the question as to whether there really are "hidden common features". Geoffrey St.-Hilaire claimed that there was a unified plan which dominated the entire animal kingdom ("unité de composition organique"). Cuvier, who came out of this dispute as the winner, rejected this. Almost 10 years later the German naturalists Schleiden and Schwann established the cell theory, and another 20 years later Charles Darwin got the theory of evolution generally accepted. In 1809 – the year in which Darwin was born - Jean Baptiste Lamarck had already presented it in his book 14 , which did not receive a lot of attention. However, Darwin, who had gathered an impressive amount of evidence, aroused a great deal of attention and approval. With these two theories the hidden common features which had been searched for by Kant, Goethe, Geoffrey St.-Hilaire and others seemed to have been discovered. The cell theory alone meant a huge degree of standardisation. Nowadays the cell theory is taught in every school, but not many are fully aware of its consequences: All plants and animals are built up from the same basic unit, i.e. the "cell". In water these cells live as independent organisms - the unicellular organisms. They reproduce by cell division. The "multicellular organisms" who are bigger by far – all larger plants and animals including human beings – also come from a single cell, from the "germ cell". The germ cell is also subject to cell division, but the resulting secondary cells are not. Instead, more and more large cell clumps are formed - and in these 15 work organisation takes place. In some of the resulting larger "organisms" the cells develop leaf tissue, in others they develop muscles, bone tissue, etc. This way, animal and plant organs are always built up by the same fundamental unit. Therefore, however different as higher animals and plants may be in their outer appearance – a bee, a fir-tree, a porcupine , they are all built up from one and the same fundamental unit, the "cell". The theory of evolution of Lamarck and Darwin explained this astounding common feature by assuming a natural affinity. The origin of all plants and animals - including the human being – can be found in unicellular organisms. They are all branches of the same enormous phylogenetic tree of life. Nowadays it is thought that the beginning of this process was two and a half or three billion years ago. Subsequent generations of researchers were able to substantiate both theories by using improved tools and methods. No counter-evidence was produced. Today we have no reason for serious doubt that this process called "evolution" really took place. A third hidden common feature was discovered. In all plants and animals the hereditary recipe ("genome") hidden in the cells is built up on one and the same principle. The electron microscope has even made it accessible for the human eye. They are extraordinarily long, thread-like nucleic acid molecules, on which the individual development orders are lined up like letters. Our current knowledge about the order and the structure of human hereditary factors does not come from our research on human germ cells. We owe it to research done first by Gregor Mendel on peas, then by T.H Morgan with dew-flies and later by other researchers done mainly on bacteria and viruses. We have to realise what this means: Even between a human being and minute bacteria there is still such a close affinity that we can infer the inner structure of human germ cells from the one of the bacteria! Therefore it is perfectly clear that nowadays in the field of biology – and in the field of natural sciences in general – the question of the "hidden common feature" is considered as outdated and answered long ago. In this sense Werner Heisenberg, a Nobel prizewinner, commented that one could, in the spirit of Goethe, consider nucleic acid as a "primal living creature" – " because it is a basic structure for the whole biological field." Heisenberg compares the elementary particles the atoms consist of with the "regular bodies" from Plato’s "Timaios", and he continues: "They are the prototypes, the ideas of matter. Nucleic acid is the idea of the living creature. These prototypes define entire further development of events ..." 15 The biologist W. Zündorf expressed this point of view even stronger in his writings on the evolution research. "Die von Goethe intuitiv erschaute und dichterisch gestaltete Einheit in allem Wechsel und in aller Mannigfaltigkeit der Formen enthüllt sich dem modernen Forscher als das dem Lebendigen zugrundeligende Erbgut. Jede lebende Gestalt dankt ihm ihr Dasein, ihre Formfülle liegt in seiner Wandlungsfähigkeit begründet." 16 I will try to show that these opinions are only half right and that a further, maybe even the most important common feature has remained undiscovered until today. The genotype – the "hereditary recipe", as I call it – certainly was an important prerequisite for development towards a higher level. But the effectiveness of the hereditary recipes cannot explain the 16 spatial and temporal structures which organisms have attained in the course of evolution. Rather, it was the necessity to have an active energy balance that almost stipulated how these spatial and temporal structures had to be. The energon theory takes up where Goethe’s way of thinking, and that of several of his contemporaries, came to an end. This way of thinking claimed that the process of life inevitably develops according to a common basic concept. It also claimed that all living creatures – in order to be able to exist and continue to develop – have to follow, as it were, the same rules, and that the very same rules are also authoritative for the spatial-temporal structure of professional entities which are formed by human beings 17 This hidden fundamental framework is – as the reader will see – unsightly and imposes a view which is utterly different from our usual categories of thinking. As Goethe said, this hidden common feature can only be described "not according to the senses, but according to the spirit" . But the energon theory goes a lot beyond this as it includes not only animals and plants in its comparative way of looking at things, but also working structures created by human beings. To use Goethe’s terminology - not only for the "primal organism", but also for the "primal professional entity". 5 The question about the hidden common feature also came up in economics and in sociology. In 1912 and in 1923 the Russian national economist A. Bogdanov published two volumes on "general organisation theory", and in 1919 three lectures by the sociologist J. Plerge appeared in Germany on the same subject. Further writings onsimilar questions came from the national economists R. Erdmann and W. Brand, the philosopher O. Feyerabend, the constructor K. Wieser, the ontologist F.Schmidt, the writers F. Eulenberg and H. Domizlaff, the economy expert K.Stefanic-Allmayer and others 18 All these authors looked – from very different starting points – for the actual "nature of organisation". I briefly want to point out a serious mistake which m