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 ^schylus 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 



