THE MEANING OF SCIENCE TO MANKIND 9 



long as the thoughts of men were directed toward another 

 world, has left an historical record in which we can take 

 little pride. The humanistic philosophy of life, which 

 flowered in Greece and which has blossomed again, is not the 

 crude materialistic desire to eat, drink, and be merry. It 

 is a spiritual joy in living and a confidence in the future, 

 which makes this life a thing worthwhile. The otherworld- 

 liness of the Middle Ages does not satisfy the spiritual de- 

 mands of modern times. 



It was this humanistic ideal which strove for domination 

 in the ancient world but at last went down defeated by that 

 fear of the unknown which was man's heritage from savagery. 

 The Greek ideal of life declined, despite the beginnings of 

 scientific knowledge, because the bulk of mankind still be- 

 held in nature a great unknowable filled with malignity 

 toward men. Terror of the dark brought victory to that 

 philosophy which made this world a vale of tribulation 

 wherein man prepared himself for the next. From primitive 

 times, blind fear swept on, unchecked save by the naked 

 strength of the Greek mind. When Greece and Rome 

 declined, fear chilled the hearts of men until in modern 

 times, man mastered fear by scientific knowledge. To-day, 

 men can face the unknown, strong in their conviction that 

 mankind will ultimately comprehend much that has seemed 

 unknowable. Nature now appears orderly, not capricious; 

 causal, not magical. For those who come after us, if not for 

 ourselves, the life that now is will possess greater possibilities 

 than those ascribed in the past to a life beyond the grave. 

 We have ceased to look upon nature with the dumb terror of 

 the savage mind. We no longer grovel before her as an un- 

 known power whose caprice may work us good or ill. Be- 

 cause of modern scientific knowledge, we look upon a world 

 which is mainly, perhaps wholly, organized without reference 

 to the desires of individual men, a universe of which we are a 

 part and whose course we may hope to influence, if only to an 

 infinitesimal degree. Our fate may be "on the knees of the 



