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L. RON HUBBARD | A PROFILE
An Introduction to L. Ron Hubbard
By L. Ron Hubbard
There are only two tests of a life well lived, L. Ron Hubbard once remarked: Did one do as one intended? And were people glad one lived? In testament to the first stands the full body of his life’s work, including the more than ten thousand authored works and three thousand tape-recorded lectures of Dianetics and Scientology. In evidence of the second are the hundreds of millions whose lives have been demonstrably bettered because he lived. They are the generations of students now reading superlatively, owing to L. Ron Hubbard’s educational discoveries; they are the millions more freed from the lure of substance abuse through L. Ron Hubbard’s breakthroughs in drug rehabilitation; still more touched by his common sense moral code; and many millions more again who hold his work as the spiritual cornerstone of their lives. Although best known for Dianetics and Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard cannot be so simply categorized. If nothing else, his life was too varied, his influence too broad. There are tribesmen in Southern Africa, for example, who know nothing of Dianetics and Scientology, but they know L. Ron Hubbard, the educator. Similarly, there are factory workers across Eastern Europe who know him only for his administrative discoveries; children in Southeast Asia who know him only as the author of their moral code and readers in dozens of languages who know him only for his novels. So, no, L. Ron Hubbard is not an easy man to categorize and certainly does not fit popular misconceptions of “religious founder” as an aloof and contemplative figure. Yet the more one comes to know this man and his achievements, the more one comes to realize he was precisely the sort of person to have brought us Scientology—the only major religion to have been founded in the twentieth century. What Scientology offers is likewise what one would expect of a man such as L. Ron Hubbard. For not only does it provide an entirely unique approach to our most fundamental questions—Who are we? From where did we come and what is our destiny?—but it further provides an equally unique technology for greater spiritual freedom. So how would we expect to characterize the founder of such a religion? Clearly, he would have to be larger than life, attracted to people, liked by people, dynamic, charismatic and immensely capable in a dozen fields—all exactly L. Ron Hubbard. “So how would we expect to characterize the founder of such a religion? Clearly, he would have to be larger than life, attracted to people, liked by people, dynamic, charismatic and immensely capable in a dozen fields—all exactly L. Ron Hubbard.” The fact is, if Mr. Hubbard had stopped after only one of his many accomplishments, he would still be celebrated today. For example, with some fifty million works of fiction in circulation, including such monumental bestsellers as Fear, Final Blackout, Battlefield Earth and the ten-volume Mission Earth series, Mr. Hubbard is unquestionably among the most acclaimed and widely read authors of all time. His novels additionally earned some of the literature’s most prestigious awards and he is very truthfully described as “one of the most prolific and influential writers of the twentieth century.” His earlier accomplishments are equally impressive. As a barnstorming aviator through the 1930s, he was known as “Flash Hubbard” and broke all local records for sustained glider flight. As a leader of far-flung expeditions, he is credited with conducting the first complete Puerto Rican mineralogical survey under United States protectorship and his navigational annotations still influence the maritime guides for British Columbia. His experimentation with early radio directional finding further became the basis for the LOng RAnge Navigation system (LORAN); while as a lifelong photographer, his work was featured in National Geographic and his exhibits drew tens of thousands. Among other avenues of research, Mr. Hubbard developed and codified an administrative technology that is utilized by organizations of every description, including multinational corporations, charitable bodies, political parties, schools, youth clubs and every imaginable small business. Likewise Mr. Hubbard’s internationally acclaimed educational methods are utilized by educators from every academic quarter, while his equally acclaimed drug rehabilitation program routinely proves doubly and even triply more effective than any similarly aimed program. Yet however impressive these facts of his life, no measure of the man is replete without some appreciation of what became his life’s work: Dianetics and Scientology. (See the L. Ron Hubbard Series edition, Philosopher & Founder: Rediscovery of the Human Soul.) The story is immense, wondrous and effectively encompasses the whole of his existence. Yet the broad strokes are these: By way of a first entrance into a spiritual dimension, he tells of a boyhood friendship with indigenous Blackfeet Indians in Helena, Montana. Notable among them was a full-fledged tribal medicine man locally known as Old Tom. In what ultimately constituted a rare bond, the six-year-old Ron was both honored with the status of blood brother and instilled with an appreciation of a profoundly distinguished spiritual heritage. “The story is immense, wondrous and effectively encompasses the whole of his existence.” What may be seen as the next milestone came in 1923 when a twelve-year-old L. Ron Hubbard began an examination of Freudian theory with a Commander Joseph C. Thompson—the only United States naval officer to study with Freud in Vienna. Although neither the young nor later Ron Hubbard was to ever accept psychoanalysis per se, the exposure once again proved pivotal. For if nothing else, as Mr. Hubbard phrased it, Freud at least advanced an idea that “something could be done about the mind.” The third crucial step of this journey lay in Asia, where an L. Ron Hubbard, then still in his teens, spent the better part of two years in travel and study. He became one of the few Americans of the age to gain entrance into fabled Tibetan lamaseries scattered through the Western Hills of China and actually studied with the last in a line of royal magicians descended from the court of Kublai Khan. Yet however enthralling were such adventures, he would finally admit to finding nothing either workable or predictable as regards the human mind. Hence his summary statement on abiding misery in lands where wisdom is great but carefully hidden and only doled out as superstition. Upon his return to the United States in 1929 and completion of his high-school education, Mr. Hubbard enrolled in George Washington University. There, he studied engineering, mathematics and nuclear physics—all disciplines that would serve him well through later philosophic inquiry. In point of fact, L. Ron Hubbard was the first to rigorously employ Western scientific methods to questions of a spiritual nature. Beyond a basic methodology, however, university offered nothing of what he sought. Indeed, as he later admitted with some vehemence: “It was very obvious that I was dealing with and living in a culture which knew less about the mind than the lowest primitive tribe I had ever come in contact with. Knowing also that people in the East were not able to reach as deeply and predictably into the riddles of the mind, as I had been led to expect, I knew I would have to do a lot of research.”
That research consumed the next twenty years. Through the course of it, he would move amongst twenty-one races and cultures, including Pacific Northwest Native American settlements, Philippine Tagalogs and aboriginal people of then remote Caribbean isles. In the simplest terms, his focus lay with two fundamental questions. First, and extending from experimentation conducted at George Washington University, he sought out a long-speculated life force at the root of human consciousness. Next and inextricably linked to the first, he searched for a unifying common denominator of life—a universal yardstick, as it were, with which to determine what was invariably true and workable as regards the human condition. What amounted to a first philosophic plateau came in 1938 with a now legendary manuscript entitled “Excalibur.” In essence it proposed life to be not a random series of chemical reactions, but instead driven by some definable urge underlying all behavior. That urge, he declared, was Survive! and it represented the single most pervasive force among all living things. That Man was surviving was not a new idea. That here was the sole common denominator of existence—this was entirely new and therein lay the signpost for all research to follow. “That Man was surviving was not a new idea. That here was the sole common denominator of existence—this was entirely new and therein lay the signpost for all research to follow.” The Second World War proved both an interruption of research and a further impetus: the first owing to service in both the Atlantic and Pacific as a commander of antisubmarine patrols; the second because if anything underscored the need for a workable philosophy to resolve the human condition, it was the unmitigated horror of global conflict. Hence, another summary statement from L. Ron Hubbard at the midpoint of his journey: “Man has a madness and it’s called war.” The culmination of research to this juncture came in 1945 at the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. Left partially blind from damaged optic nerves and lame with hip and spinal injuries, then Lieutenant L. Ron Hubbard became one of five thousand servicemen under treatment at Oak Knoll for injuries suffered in combat. Also among them were several hundred former prisoners of internment camps, a significant percentage of whom could not assimilate nutrition and were thus effectively starving. Intrigued by such cases, Mr. Hubbard took it upon himself to administer an early form of Dianetics. In all, fifteen patients received Dianetics counseling to relieve a mental inhibition to recovery. What then ensued and what factually saved the lives of those patients was a discovery of immense ramifications. Namely, and notwithstanding generally held scientific theory, one’s state of mind actually took precedence over one’s physical condition. That is, our viewpoints, attitudes and overall emotional balance ultimately determined our physical well-being and not the reverse. Or as L. Ron Hubbard himself so succinctly phrased it: “Function monitored structure.” Thereafter Mr. Hubbard tested workability on a broad selection of cases drawn from a cross section of American society, circa 1948. Among those case studies were Hollywood performers, industry executives, accident victims from emergency wards and the criminally insane from a Georgia mental institution. In total, he brought Dianetics to bear on more than three hundred individuals before compiling sixteen years of investigation into a manuscript. That work is Dianetics: The Original Thesis. Although not initially offered for publication, it nonetheless saw extensive circulation as hectographed manuscripts circulated within scientific/medical circles. Moreover, such was popular response, Mr. Hubbard soon found himself besieged with requests for further information. In eventual reply, he authored what became the all-time bestselling work on the human mind: Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Without question, here was a cultural landmark. In what would prove a telling prediction, then national columnist Walter Winchell proclaimed: “There is something new coming up in April called Dianetics. A new science which works with the invariability of physical science in the field of the human mind. From all indications it will prove to be as revolutionary for humanity as the first caveman’s discovery and utilization of fire.”
If Winchell’s statement was bold, it was nonetheless accurate; for with Dianetics came the first definitive explanation of human thinking and behavior. Here, too, was the first means to resolve problems of the human mind, including unreasonable fears, upsets, insecurities and psychosomatic ills of every description. At the core of such problems lay what Mr. Hubbard termed the reactive mind and defined as that “portion of a person’s mind which is entirely stimulus-response, which is not under his volitional control and which exerts force and the power of command over his awareness, purposes, thoughts, body and actions.” Stored within the reactive mind are engrams, defined as mental recordings of pain and unconsciousness. That the mind still recorded perceptions during moments of partial or full unconsciousness was dimly known. But how the engram impacted physiologically, how it acted upon thinking and behavior—this was entirely new. Nor had anyone fathomed the totality of engramic content as contained in the reactive mind and what it spelled in terms of human misery. In short, here lay a mind, as Mr. Hubbard so powerfully phrased it, “which makes a man suppress his hopes, which holds his apathies, which gives him irresolution when he should act, and kills him before he has begun to live.” If ever one wished for incontrovertible proof of Dianetics efficacy, one need only consider what it accomplished. The cases are legion, documented and startling in the extreme: an arthritically paralyzed welder returned to full mobility in a few dozen hours, a legally blind professor regaining sight in under a week and a hysterically crippled housewife returned to normalcy in a single three-hour session. Then there was that ultimate goal of Dianetics processing wherein the reactive mind is vanquished entirely, giving way to the state of Clear with attributes well in advance of anything previously predicted. Needless to say, as word of Dianetics spread, general response was considerable: more than fifty thousand copies sold immediately off the press, while bookstores struggled to keep it on shelves. As evidence of the workability grew—the fact Dianetics actually offered techniques any reasonably intelligent reader could apply—response grew even more dramatic. “Dianetics—Taking U.S. by Storm” and “Fastest Growing Movement in America” read newspaper headlines through the summer of 1950. While by the end of the year, some 750 Dianetics groups had spontaneously mushroomed from coast to coast and six cities boasted research foundations to help facilitate Mr. Hubbard’s advancement of the subject. That advancement was swift, methodical and at least as revelatory as preceding discoveries. At the heart of what Mr. Hubbard examined through late 1950 and early 1951 lay the most decisive questions of human existence. In an early but telling statement on the matter, he wrote: “The further one investigated, the more one came to understand that here, in this creature Homo sapiens, were entirely too many unknowns.” “…if many before him had roved upon that track, they left no signposts, no road map and revealed but a fraction of what they saw.” The ensuing line of research, embarked upon some twenty years earlier, he described as a track of “knowing how to know.” In a further description of the journey, he metaphorically wrote of venturing down many highways, along many byroads, into many back alleys of uncertainty and through many strata of life. And if many before him had roved upon that track, they left no signposts, no road map and revealed but a fraction of what they saw. Nevertheless, in the early spring of 1952 and through a pivotal lecture in Wichita, Kansas, the result of this search was announced: Scientology. An applied religious philosophy, Scientology represents a statement of human potential that even if echoed in ancient scripture is utterly unparalleled. Among other essential tenets of the Scientology religion: Man is an immortal spiritual being; his experience extends well beyond a single lifetime and his capabilities are unlimited even if not presently realized. In that respect, Scientology represents the ultimate definition of a religion: not just a system of beliefs, but a means of spiritual transformation. How Scientology accomplishes that transformation is through the study of L. Ron Hubbard scriptures and the application of principles therein. The central practice of Scientology is auditing. It is delivered by an auditor, from the Latin audire, “to listen.” The auditor does not evaluate nor in any way tell one what to think. In short, auditing is not done to a person and its benefits can only be achieved through active participation. Indeed, auditing rests on the maxim that only by allowing one to find one’s own answer to a problem can that problem be resolved. Precisely to that end, the auditor employs processes—precise sets of questions to help one examine otherwise unknown and unwanted sources of travail. What all this means subjectively is, of course, somewhat ineffable; for by its very definition auditing involves an ascent to states not described in earlier literature. But in very basic terms it may be said that Scientology does not ask one to strive toward higher ethical conduct, greater awareness, happiness and sanity. Rather, it provides a route to states where all simply is—where one becomes more ethical, able, self-determined and happier because that which makes us otherwise is gone. While from an all-encompassing perspective and the ultimate ends of auditing, Mr. Hubbard invited those new to Scientology with this: “We are extending to you the precious gift of freedom and immortality—factually, honestly.” “We are extending to you the precious gift of freedom and immortality—factually, honestly.” The complete route of spiritual advancement is delineated by the Scientology Bridge. It presents the precise steps of auditing and training one must walk to realize the full scope of Scientology. Because the Bridge is laid out in a gradient fashion, the advancement is orderly and predictable. If the basic concept is an ancient one—a route across a chasm of ignorance to a higher plateau—what the Bridge presents is altogether new: not some arbitrary sequence of steps, but the most workable means for the recovery of what Mr. Hubbard described as our “immortal, imperishable self, forevermore.” Yet if Scientology represents the route to Man’s highest spiritual aspirations, it also means much to his immediate existence—to his family, career and community. That fact is critical to an understanding of the religion and is actually what Scientology is all about: not a doctrine, but the study and handling of the human spirit in relationship to itself, to other life and the universe in which we live. In that respect, L. Ron Hubbard’s work embraces everything. “Unless there is a vast alteration in Man’s civilization as it stumbles along today, Man will not be here very long.” “Unless there is a vast alteration in Man’s civilization as it stumbles along today,” he declared in the mid-1960s, “Man will not be here very long.” For signs of that decline, he cited political upheaval, moral putrefaction, violence, racism, illiteracy and drugs. It was in response to these problems, then, that L. Ron Hubbard devoted the better part of his final years. Indeed, by the early 1970s his life may be charted directly in terms of his search for solutions to the cultural crises of this modern age. That he was ultimately successful is borne out in the truly phenomenal growth of Scientology. There are now more than ten thousand groups and organizations in well over 150 nations using the various technologies of Dianetics and Scientology. That his discoveries relating to the human mind and spirit form the basis of all else he accomplished is, in fact, the whole point of this introduction. Thus, what is presented in pages to follow—in the name of better education, crime-free cities, drug-free campuses, stable and ethical organizations and cultural revitalization through the arts—all this and more was derived from discoveries of Dianetics and Scientology. Yet given the sheer scope of accomplishment—as an author, educator, humanitarian, administrator and artist—no such treatment can be entirely complete. For how can one possibly convey, in a few dozen pages, the impact of a life that so deeply touched so many other lives? Nonetheless, this succinct profile of the man and his achievements is provided in the spirit of what he himself declared: “If things were a little better known and understood, we would all lead happier lives.” The materials of Dianetics and Scientology include 3 encyclopedic series and some 3,000 taped lectures. In full, L. Ron Hubbard’s philosophic contribution represents more than 75 million written and recorded words. Together these materials constitute the largest single body of work on the human mind and spirit.
Dianetics: Dianetics is a forerunner and substudy of Scientology. Dianetics means “through the mind” or “through the soul” (from Greek dia, through, and nous, mind or soul). Dianetics is further defined as what the mind or soul is doing to the body. Page . Scientology: Scientology is the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, universes and other life. The term Scientology is taken from the Latin scio, which means “knowing in the fullest sense of the word,” and the Greek word logos, meaning “study of.” In itself the word means literally “knowing how to know.” Scientology is further defined as the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, universes and other life. Page . cornerstone: a fundamental element or part of something; basic; essential. Literally, a cornerstone is a stone that forms part of the corner of the foundation of a building. Page . contemplative: given to contemplation, the action of thinking or considering something; theoretical as opposed to practical. Page . technology: the methods of application of an art or science as opposed to mere knowledge of the science or art itself. In Scientology, the term technology refers to the methods of application of Scientology principles to improve the functions of the mind and rehabilitate the potentials of the spirit, developed by L. Ron Hubbard. Page . dynamic: full of energy, enthusiasm and a sense of purpose, and able both to get things going and to get things done. Page . barnstorming: in the early days of aviation, touring (the country) giving short airplane rides, exhibitions of stunt flying, etc. This term comes from the use of barns as hangars. Page . glider: a motorless aircraft that is supported in flight by air currents. Gliders are mainly used for sports and recreational purposes. Page . Puerto Rican mineralogical survey: also known as the West Indies Mineralogical Expedition, an expedition organized and conducted by L. Ron Hubbard during the early 1930s. The expedition also toured other Caribbean islands while conducting its primary mission, the first complete mineralogical survey of Puerto Rico under United States protectorship. Page . protectorship: used with reference to the status of Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean under the protection of the United States but having independence and self-government in local matters and only partial control over foreign affairs. Page . navigation(al): the science of locating the position of ships or aircraft and plotting and directing their course (the route along which a vessel or aircraft proceeds); directing a ship by determining its position, course and distance traveled. Navigation is concerned with finding the way, avoiding collision, meeting schedules, etc. Navigation uses various tools (such as charts; observation of the Sun, Moon and stars; and various electronic and mechanical instruments) and methods to determine a ship’s direction and verify its position. Derived from the Latin navis, ship, and agere, to drive (literally, ship driving). Page . annotation(s): a note added to a text, diagram, chart or the like, giving explanation or comment. Page . radio directional finding: the act or practice of determining the direction from which radio waves or signals are coming, often using a device such as an antenna that can be rotated freely on a vertical axis. Radio directional finding is usually used to assist in determining a ship’s position. Page . LORAN: abbreviation for LOng RAnge Navigation, a radio navigation system where the position of a ship or aircraft can be established based on the amount of time it takes radio signals to reach the ship from two or more known locations. Page . National Geographic: an illustrated US magazine of geography, travel, science and exploration, published since 1888. Known internationally, it has one of the largest annual magazine circulations in the world. Along with colorful articles and exceptional photographs on people, places, animals, plants and natural wonders, the magazine also reports on significant explorations sponsored by its publisher, the National Geographic Society, a world-renowned organization founded in 1888 by a number of famous explorers and scientists for the increase and spreading of geographic knowledge. Page . strokes, broad: literally, a wide mark of a pen or pencil when writing or a brush when painting. Hence broad strokes, a general view or picture of a topic or subject. Page . dimension: any of the component aspects of a particular situation, etc., especially one newly discovered. Page . Helena: city and capital of Montana, a state in the northwestern United States bordering on Canada. Page . tribal medicine man: a person believed to have supernatural powers of curing disease and controlling spirits, as in a tribal group, a local division of a Native North American people. Page . milestone: a significant or important event or stage in the life, progress, development or the like of a person, subject, Mankind, etc. A milestone is a stone or pillar set up to show the distance in miles to or from a specific place. Page . Freudian theory: also called psychoanalysis, a system of mental therapy developed by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) in Austria in 1894 and which depended upon the following practices for its effects: the patient was encouraged to talk about and recall his childhood years while the practitioner searched for hidden sexual incidents believed by Freud to be the cause of mental ills. The practitioner read significances into all statements and evaluated them for the patient (told him what to think) along sex-related lines. Page . Thompson, Commander: Joseph Cheesman Thompson (1874–1943), a commander and surgeon in the United States Navy who studied Freudian analysis with Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Page . Tibetan lamaseries: monasteries of lamas, priests or monks in Lamaism, a branch of Buddhism that seeks to find release from the suffering of life and attain a state of complete happiness and peace. Lamaism originated in Tibet. Page . lamaseries, Tibetan: monasteries of lamas, priests or monks in Lamaism, a branch of Buddhism that seeks to find release from the suffering of life and attain a state of complete happiness and peace. Lamaism originated in Tibet. Page . Western Hills: a range of hills in China, situated northwest of the Chinese capital, Beijing. The range is known for its many temples and has long been a religious retreat. Page . Kublai Khan: (1216–1294) military leader of the Mongols, a people living to the north of China. He conquered China, becoming the first non-Chinese person to rule as emperor of China (1279–1294). Kublai Khan encouraged the advancement of literature, the arts and science and his court attracted people from countries all over the world. Page . George Washington University: a private university, founded in 1821, in the city of Washington, DC, and named after the first president of the United States, George Washington (1732–1799). The university has a long history of supporting research in physics and other technical fields. Page . nuclear physics: that branch of physics that deals with the behavior, structure and component parts of the center of an atom (called a nucleus). Page . methodology: the methods or organizing principles underlying a particular art, science or other area of study. Page . Pacific Northwest: an area of the United States that includes the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana. Page . Tagalogs: members of the ethnic group that is native to Manila (seaport and capital of the Philippines) and the surrounding region. Page . aboriginal: characteristic of groups of people that have existed from the earliest days; existing from the earliest known times. Page . inextricably: so closely linked to a person, place or thing that it cannot be considered separately. Page . common denominator: something common to or characteristic of a number of people, things, situations, etc.; shared characteristic. Page . “Excalibur”: a philosophic manuscript written by L. Ron Hubbard in 1938. Although unpublished as such, the body of information it contained has since been released in various Dianetics and Scientology materials. Page . signpost: literally, a long piece of wood or other material set upright into the ground bearing a sign that gives information or directions, such as the proper road to a place or the like. Hence, any immediate indication, obvious clue, guide, etc. Page . antisubmarine: of or relating to the various methods employed in war to detect and fight enemy submarines, including locating with a device that picks up reflected pulses of sound and fighting with various explosive devices. Page . Oak Knoll Naval Hospital: a naval hospital located in Oakland, California, where LRH spent time recovering from injuries sustained during World War II (1939–1945) and researching the effect of the mind on the physical recovery of patients. Page . Oakland: a seaport in western California, on San Francisco Bay, opposite the city of San Francisco. Page . optic nerve(s): the nerve that carries signals from the eye to the brain. Optic means of or relating to the eye or vision. Page . internment camps: prison camps for the confinement of prisoners of war, members of the armed forces who are captured and held by an enemy during war. Page . precedence: the condition of having greater importance than something else; priority in importance, order or rank. Page . function: intellectual powers; mental action; thought, as contrasted with structure, how something is built or its physical design. Page . hectographed: reproduced by means of a hectograph, a machine used in the 1940s to ’60s, prior to the invention of the modern photocopier, for making many copies of a page of writing or a drawing. Page . Winchell, Walter: (1897–1972) famous US journalist and broadcaster whose newspaper columns and radio news broadcasts gave him a massive audience and great influence in the United States in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Page . science, physical: any of the sciences, such as physics and chemistry, that study and analyze the nature and properties of energy and nonliving matter. Page . definitive: having a fixed and final form; providing a solution or final answer; satisfying all requirements. Page . psychosomatic: psycho refers to mind and somatic refers to body; the term psychosomatic means the mind making the body ill or illnesses which have been created physically within the body by the mind. A description of the cause and source of psychosomatic ills is contained in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Page . reactive mind: that portion of a person’s mind which is entirely stimulus-response, which is not under his volitional control and which exerts force and the power of command over his awareness, purposes, thoughts, body and actions. Page . stimulus-response: a certain stimulus (something that rouses a person or thing to activity or energy or that produces a reaction in the body) automatically giving a certain response. Page . fathomed: penetrated (something, such as a mystery, puzzle or the like) and understood thoroughly. Page . short, in: introducing a summary statement of what has been previously stated in a few words; in summary. Page . apathies: attitudes or feelings of apathy manifested by a lack of feeling or emotion; absences of interest or concern. Page . Clear: a being who no longer has his own reactive mind. He is a person who is not affected by aberration (any deviation or departure from rationality). He is rational in that he forms the best possible solutions he can on the data he has and from his viewpoint. Page . storm, taking by: creating a great impression upon; captivating; becoming quickly popular or famous. Page . metaphorically: using a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance. Page . byroad: a side road or a minor road. Used figuratively to mean a course of action, investigation, etc., that is minor or less important when compared to others. Page . tenet(s): something accepted as an important truth; any of a set of established and fundamental beliefs, such as one relating to religion. Page . travail: pain or suffering resulting from conditions that are mentally or physically difficult to overcome. Page . gradient: done by means of a gradual approach; taking something step by step, level by level, each step or level being, of itself, easily attainable—so that finally, complicated and difficult activities or states can be achieved with relative ease. The term gradient also applies to each of the steps taken in such an approach. Page . |