who would poison wells. They do not fear famine, pestilence or plagues, for 

 they rely upon the techniques which enable us to control much more effec- 

 tively than ever before the operation of soils and waters, fertilizers and seeds, 

 tractors and harvesters, as well as the means for combating insect pests and 

 microbes. They do not fear their neighbors, for they have learned tliat their 

 own welfare and their health are tied up with the health and welfare of 

 their neighbors, and they carry on with their neighbors a constant inter- 

 change of goods and services, of ideas, sports, music and art. 



Such populations are new not only in their freedom from the anxieties 

 that cripple millions of people everywhere. They differ from the others also 

 in their outlook on the future. By using their science in their daily work, 

 they are able to assure to everyone the essentials of decent living. They there- 

 fore have an exceptionally broad margin of time and energy to use for 

 activities that only human beings can carry on — just for fun. They can play. 

 They can travel. They can explore. They can experiment. They can analyze 

 ever new areas of human experience. And they can create. 



Not everybody can make music or paint pictures or write verse that others 

 will care about. But every healthy person can create. He can create in ways 

 that give him satisfaction, give him the feeling that he is a person, some- 

 thing more than a machine, something more than an animal. He can do 

 something distinctive — even if no more important than a parlor trick or a 

 wisecrack, something that gets friendly recognition and approval, at least 

 for the moment. He can make himself useful to those around him as a 

 person, not merely as a hand. 



Science Disarranges Things Some of us have no interest in science. 

 Perhaps we are too busy with other things, or we protect ourselves against 

 all new ideas. Yet we cannot escape what science is doing to our manner 

 of life. The achievements of scientific research are daily brought to our 

 attention not only through the newspapers and magazines, but through 

 changes in the things we have to buy. There are new packages, but new 

 ways of preparing the contents too. Our food materials come from remote 

 corners of the earth, and we eat new preparations of what formerly had not 

 been used. Today cotton fiber, as well as cotton oil and filterpress residue 

 and other materials, serves us in totally new ways. At the beginning of this 

 century, cottonseed oil was not used as human food at all. Soybeans and a 

 dozen other crops have come to be important features of American agri- 

 culture in comparatively recent years. We raise fur-animals on farms instead 

 of waiting for trappers and hunters to bring the pelts. And new furs that 

 trappers never saw are being created — such as the white mink, derived from 

 an albino mutation. 



Some of the gains of science reach the ordinary person through various 

 professional workers. Dentists and physicians change their methods. They 



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