396 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1949 
He would be further astonished by the tiny fragment of time we call 
“history” in contrast to the endless millennia of prehistory. He 
would note that all that modern man knows of prehistoric man has 
been cleverly deduced from the mute evidence left by his ancestors, 
often hidden in caves and dried river valleys. And finally he could 
not fail to be astonished by the unequal march of history itselfi—the 
long eras during which man fought and struggled and moved along, 
to the slow pedestrian pace of 2 or 4 miles per hour—in contrast to 
this century in which he has accelerated his pace until it has exceeded 
the speed of sound. 
Our Martian’s perusal of history would have acquainted him with 
the various stages of civilization and culture through which man has 
passed—the nomadic civilization of the early Semitic tribes, the in- 
tellectual ages of Greece and Rome, the primitive agrarian culture of 
the Middle Ages, the emergence of the crafts and guilds, the cultural 
renaissance of the Western world, and the rise of exploration and sea 
travel. And finally, he would view with some astonishment, no 
doubt, the industrial revolution of the last 100 years and its kaleido- 
scopic impact on succeeding decades. 
But he would be unprepared, I think, in his global survey, for the 
strange inconsistencies and incongruities of the modern world. Hav- 
ing observed in his study of history a slow progression through no- 
madic, agrarian, handicraft, and industrial stages of economy, he 
would likely be surprised to find examples of all these stages still 
extant in various parts of the world. Or, if he had been particularly 
interested in the social and political emergence of man, how would he 
account for the vestigial remains of ancient tyranny, the oppressive 
burden of autocratic rule, still existing side by side with the democ- 
racies of the modern world? In short, to borrow a figure from the 
biologists, he would find our present-day civilization the phylogenesis 
of human history. 
We might assume that this Mid-Century Convocation on the Social 
Implications of Scientific Progress, which opens today, has convened 
for the purpose of explaining to the Man from Mars the achievements, 
the trends, the problems, and the anomalies of our times. And in so 
doing perhaps we shall gain for ourselves a better understanding of 
the multiplicity of forces which have a bearing on our lives and so 
achieve a better orientation for the resolution of those discords that 
threaten further progress. 
For my part, I am happy to be today the special pleader for the 
role of science in modern society. For I hold that science and tech- 
nology are largely responsible for much that we find good in the world 
and are capable of being the common denominator of many things 
we seek to accomplish in the decades ahead. 
