The Background of Modern Science 3 



tile deities of various sorts. Great plagues could sweep down 

 from nowhere and wipe out whole famihes and villages. 

 Such dramatic manifestations of nature as thunder, light- 

 ning, and raging winds were not understood but could only 

 be endured as reprisals from on high for man's wickedness. 



Oddly enough, this abject impotence in the face of nat- 

 ural phenomena was frequently coupled with very inflated 

 notions of man's place in the scheme of things. Man be- 

 lieved himself to be the most important being in the world 

 and the world was clearly the most important part of the 

 universe, situated quite obviously at its center! The gods 

 might be capricious and often frankly hostile, but there was 

 no doubt that they had a primary interest in man and spent 

 a lot of time thinking about him. 



Science has reversed this picture. In advanced societies 

 it has almost completely removed the fear of hunger, pain, 

 and premature death, or at least has reduced them to man- 

 ageable proportions. Even when we cannot control the 

 forces of nature — as in the case of the still unconquered 

 diseases or the occasional ravages of hurricanes — we feel 

 that we know a good deal about them. The paralysis of 

 fear has given place to an energetic attack that must ulti- 

 mately bring these, too, under control. While science has 

 been conferring these powers and dignities upon man, it 

 has also given him a much more humble picture of his place 

 in nature. It is no longer obvious that man is the highest 

 form of living things. Instead of inhabiting the center of 

 the universe, he occupies a minor planet in a third- or 

 fourth-rate solar system on the periphery of a not unusual 

 galaxy. Even on earth his status is at best ambiguous. He 

 has been here for a much shorter time than most other 

 species and his future is by no means guaranteed. Although 

 at the moment he occupies a rather conspicuous place in 

 the order of living things, he is in no important sense above 



