B1202 <=> B1204 (BTG XLVIII From the Author, p. 1203)

This experimentally proved categorical affirmation of the Institute-for-the-Harmonious-Development-of-Man, namely, that the ordinary man can do nothing and that everything does itself in him and through him, coincides with what is said of man by contemporary “exact-positive-science.”

Contemporary “exact-positive-science” says that a man is a very complex organism developed by evolution from the simplest organisms, and who has now become capable of reacting in a very complex manner to external impressions. This capability of reacting in man is so complex, and the responsive movements can appear to be so far removed from the causes evoking them and conditioning them, that the actions of man, or at least a part of them, seem to naive observation quite spontaneous.

But according to the ideas of Mr. Gurdjieff, the average man is indeed incapable of the single smallest independent or spontaneous action or word. All of him is only the result of external effect. Man is a transforming machine, a kind of transmitting station of forces.

Thus from the point of view of the totality of Mr. Gurdjieff’s ideas and also according to contemporary “exact-positive-science,” man differs from the animals only by the greater complexity of his reactions to external impressions, and by having a more complex construction for perceiving and reacting to them.

And as to that which is attributed to man and named “will,” Mr. Gurdjieff completely denies the possibility of its being in the common presence of the average man.

Will is a certain combination obtained from the results of certain properties specially elaborated in themselves by people who can do.