Principles of Life

Human civilization is really just an extension of nature: man takes simple matter and converts it into buildings, machines, factories, industrial plants and all the other artifacts of the modern world. What enables him to do this is the fact that all things have been invested by nature with certain constant properties. Once man has discovered these natural properties, he is able to use them to his own advantage. These properties make up the character of a thing; they are absolutely predictable: everything in nature can be relied upon to act in a certain way.

Raja Mohinder Pratap (1886-1979) was one of those Indians who went to Russia and met Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924). He was one of a delegation of freedom-fighters who met the Russian leader in 1919. He tells how, when he entered the room of the first ruler of communist Russia, Lenin rose to his feet, and went himself to fetch a small armchair from the corner of the room. Raja Mohinder Pratap took his seat on the armchair and Lenin sat next to him on a sofa. The revolutionary leader’s first sentence was:

In late December 1984 the Soviet First Deputy Prime Minister, Ivan Arkhipov, made a nine-day visit to the People’s Republic of China. The two giants of the communist world have been at odds with one another over ideological differences for the last twenty-five years. For most of this time relations between the two countries have been so strained that there has been no dialogue worthy of the name between them. Mr Arkhipov was the most senior Russian leader to visit China since 1969.

The atom is the final unit of matter, just as the individual is the final unit of society. If one succeeds in breaking an atom one does not destroy it; rather one converts it into a greater force, known as atomic energy. Matter is energy in a solid form and energy matter in a dispersed form. When the atoms of matter are broken and converted into atomic energy, they are transformed into a force much more potent than in their material form.