244 evolution: the ages and tomorrow 



metals would be nearly nonexistent. Without metals wide- 

 spread use of electricity would not be possible. Hygiene 

 would be without vaccines and antibodies, but probably 

 better sanitary knowledge would prevail than in the eight- 

 eenth century. Death rates would be high and the birth rate 

 would probably be as high as was biologically possible. 



In the societies of the far future the complex techniques 

 of our day, being useless then, would most likely be lost, just 

 as the engineering knowledge of the Roman Empire was 

 lost during the Middle Ages; but that does not mean that 

 pure science and philosophy would cease to be taught. 

 There would probably be scholars, just as in past ages, who 

 could keep at least a part of theoretical advanced knowledge 

 alive and, perhaps, at advancing levels, if natural selection 

 toward higher intelligence is again working. 



Of course, there is the very remote chance that man may 

 avoid the impasse of industrial exhaustion by traveling to the 

 stars. If he does so, he will add endlessly to the resources and 

 situations he may exploit and will extend his destiny still 

 more remotely along the line of time. But if he has not in 

 the meantime examined his own nature minutely and 

 learned to live by the laws and relationships of the cosmos, 

 he will only repeat again and again elsewhere the mistakes 

 and misery of his record here. It would seem that man has a 

 better chance of avoiding the industrial impasse if he re- 

 duces and mentally selects his future populations and if he 

 carefully rations the future. Unfortunately, as remote as the 

 chance of travel to the stars may be, it is a better chance 

 than the hope that mass-man will ever learn real self-control. 

 All that mass-man ever seems to know, if it is not something 

 he can fight with bow and arrow, is to run away or hide be- 

 hind mass superstitions. 



How long will man actually last as a species and at what 

 mental levels? Again, no one really knows, but there is no 

 basic reason why he should not last an exceptionally long 

 time. Some geneticists think that man's germ plasma may 



