THE UNFATHOMED UNIVERSE 7 



amount of common ground between man and beast, by an 

 analysis of obligatory modes of activity which we call re- 

 flexes and tropisms, and so on. Thus science has extended 

 its claims. 



With the advance of natural knowledge at times very 

 slowly, and again by leaps and bounds has come an in- 

 creased control of Nature which is as rich in promise as in 

 achievement. We have recalled the picture ^Eschylus gave 

 of our ancestors living in caves, fearful of wild beasts, 

 often dying of hunger or of poison, without wood-work or 

 metals, without fire, without foresight, and unable to think 

 of the general well-being. What a contrast between that 

 picture and our life to-day. For nowadays the serpent that 

 bites Man's heel is in nine cases out of ten microscopic; 

 year by year Man increases his mastery over the physical 

 forces; he coins wealth out of the thin air; he annihilates 

 distance with his shrewd devices; he makes the ether carry 

 his messages; he is extending his rule to the heavens; and 

 he is making experiments on the control of life itself. In 

 the so-called purely physical domain, at least, his dreams 

 have more than come true. 



After a long period during which, science consisted of 

 numerous discrete bodies of knowledge, largely related to 

 the practical control of Nature, there began to be concentra- 

 tion into a system, a sort of cosmology. Science entered 

 upon a new and purely theoretical role of giving man a com- 

 posite picture of the world and its processes. This is in- 

 creasingly impressive, the more we realise it which means 

 hard work. After a long ascent we get a new view, aestheti- 

 cally magnificent, intellectually a revelation of connected- 

 ness. But, fine as it is, the scientific picture has satis- 

 fied very few thinkers of distinction, the chief reason being 



