638 MAN AS A CONQUEROR 



this has taken ])lac(' aro sot forth in the unit on "Man's C^onquost 

 of Nature," and certain of the i)ossil)ilities of future iiuniau control 

 of the enviroinncMit are j)ointed out in otiier units. 



There is no doubt tliat modern science in the hands of intelligent 

 man has become a magic key admitting him to castles of mystery and 

 delight, as well as opening to him storehouses of energy by means of 

 which he will be able still further to control and transform the world. 



The invention of labor-saving devices and the dawn of the Machine 

 Age have liberated mankind from much of the time-consuming 

 drudgery which forms an inevitable part of daily living, and have 

 provided him with a larger leisure for intellectual adventure and a 

 more abundant life. It is not enough, however, to secure leisure. 

 The important thing is what will be done with it when it is gained. If 

 it simply turns out that with increasing leisure "Satan finds some- 

 thing for idle hands to do," then, in a very literal sense, there will 

 be the devil to pay in the future. The most important question 

 relating to the future of mankind on the earth is not what kind of 

 world will our descendants find to live in, but what kind of individuals 

 will they he f 



Human Betterment 



Biological, as contrasted with social, control of the potent stream 

 of humanity is the field of Eugenics. As an organized science it is 

 still in its swaddling clothes, although as an art it has been practiced 

 more or less blindly ever since there have been animals that were 

 human. W. H. P. Faunce once said, "To neglect eugenics today is 

 to neglect the whole future of humanity and to insure catastrophe." 



One reason why the fallow field of human heredity has not attracted 

 the scientific husbandman earlier is that its rewards are mostly pro- 

 jected so far into the future. Why labor to plant slow-growing seed- 

 lings of forest trees which promise scanty or no returns imtil after 

 one is dead and gone, when one can sow a field of wheat with the 

 prospect of an early harvest ? It is difficult to visualize and to become 

 enthusiastic, or even academically interested, in remote great-great- 

 great-great-grandchildren whom we can never know, when there is 

 so much of immediate pressing concern presented to us by contempo- 

 raries whom we can daily see about us. 



Obviously there are two outstanding ways by which to contribute 

 towards a better future world for our followers to live in on this earth. 

 One way is that of Euthenics, that is, by the modification and 



