THE EVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMANLIFE?

ROBIN ALLOTT

[Chapter X in The Great Mosaic Eye: Language and Evolution.2001. Lewes: Book Guild.]

Abstract

The evolutionary process has not been suspended or diverted butis still going ahead at full speed in the context of incessant changein the environment. The question of the evolutionary significance ofhuman life is a necessary subject for human beings puzzled by thefact that they are born, live for a limited period and then all die. Theimplication is that there may be a significance in the life of humanbeings which is not shared by other species. Is this likely? With Thomas Huxley at St. Andrews, Herbert Spencerplayed the only game of golf he ever played; sitting on the cliffwatching some boys bathing Spencer recorded: "We marvelledover the fact, seeming especially strange when they are no longerdisguised by clothes, that human beings should dominate over allother creatures and play the wonderful part they do on earth." Thatthis is so was surely only due to that evolutionary oddity, the largehuman brain. The role of the human brain has been an interestingevolutionary experiment - an animal body (emotions, sensations)with an advanced brain. The gain in knowledge achieved by trialand error by the genome results in the formation of an image of thematerial world within the living system. (Lorenz 1977: 23) But thegrowth in the size of the human brain has vastly extended andaccelerated this process. Not only can the individual human beingbe seen as mapping his personal environment in his brain and bodybut humanity collectively can be seen as a great mosaic eye, amany-faceted eye opening on all time and all space, looking to thefuture as well as the past. It is from this ability to model and predict that we feel the urgency ofthe question about the significance of human life. A disadvantage ofthe evolution of foresight is that it also foresees death; how toinclude death in the model. Whether or not human life in generalcan be seen as having an evolutionary significance, there is theseparate problem of the meaning or purpose of the individualhuman life. Evolution has had a direction, even if it has not had a purpose ormeaning. The new element is our awareness of the direction. Thedirection has been towards greater complexity as a means of

increasing adaptability to environmental change and towardsincreased ability to manipulate and modify the environment in theinterests of survival. The significance of human life in general canbe seen in this process, the significance of the individual human lifeas part of this process. If we are right in identifying the direction ofevolution, then we can speculate about the future, extrapolating thedirection of evolutionary change, considering the possibilitiesopening up for future human evolution.

Introduction

Rather different questions arise depending on whether oneconsiders the evolutionary significance of human life in the past,the present or a possible future - or one could approach the topicad hominem: that is consider the evolutionary significance ofone's own life?

What kind of answers could there be - for the species ? for theindividual? It may be that this is a pointless subject - or that it isan impossible subject - or that it is a subject which has beentackled, unsuccessfully, by many different people over thousandsof years (philosophers, poets, psychologists, scientists,linguists) - or that it leads directly into the morass of religiousdoctrine, disputes, mysticism, dogmatism. Or it may be that it is anecessary subject, for human beings who are puzzled by the factthat they are born, live for a limited period and then all die.

One approach is to examine closely the terms used in thequestion: "Significance": this means: the meaning, for us, [hardlytotally objectively] of human life. Immediately we see the swampof debate about meaning before us. We reinterpret: has life apurpose? has life in some sense a value? has human life anunderlying program, something that "makes sense" of it?

"Human life": this could be the life of the individual human being (your life or my life and the life of each of the 5000 or so millionhuman beings existing now - or of the innumerable individualhuman beings who have existed in the past or will (one assumes)exist in the future - or it could be the life of humanity, thecontinued life of the human species, as a distinct category ofanimate beings. "Human": this is obviously opposed to non-human life, the life of the multitude of species, of the multitude ofmembers of other species, now and in the past. The implicationis that there may be a significance in the life of human beingswhich is not shared by other species as collective entities or bythe individuals which have constituted or will constitute thoseother collective entities - elephants, spiders, whales,cockroaches, sheep, tigers, trees, fish, octopuses, monkeys,

cats, bacteria, cabbages, chimpanzees, camels, cows, mice,scorpions, snakes, kangaroos, pigs, parrots, lizards, thrushes,crocodiles etc. etc.

"Evolutionary": reminds one that the question may have to beconsidered in terms of immense stretches of time, of immensecomplications of interaction between human beings and otheranimate or inanimate entities, between human beings andgeological change, climatic change. The word reminds us that wecan approach the question by minute enquiry or massiveoverarching (horrible word) survey, in all space and all time. Thedifferent approaches or attempted clarifications interact andintersect, making possible the formulation of more complexissues, and lead on to the need for further sub-approaches andclarifications.

"Meaning" "Purpose" "Value" "Making sense" "Underlyingprogram": these words or phrases are, as Valéry put it (I think),like thin planks placed over an abyss - if we walk quickly they mayhold to the other side, if we hesitate or ponder, they will give waybeneath us. These are very human words or phrases, parts ofour total "mental" or "linguistic" (or presumably "neural")structuring. They are related to such equally weak-plank wordsas "good " "bad" "right" "wrong" "pleasant" "unpleasant". Howcan we avoid entangling ourselves with words, long before we getanywhere near our real concerns? Or should we think that theeffort is not worthwhile - it is so highly unlikely that we can findanything new or satisfying or even intellectually convincing to sayabout human life, our individual human life, or the human life ofthe species?

A typical academic approach is to see what others have said andthen, very readily, to show how inadequate and inconclusive ithas been. Still, it is progress of a kind to find out what is not true,not convincing, not in any way adequate. This approach thenhas endless books, endless patterns of thought and belief, whichit can drag onto the scene, religious institutions and practice,theology, philosophy, psychology, sociology (for the humangroup), evolutionary theory (for the species), history, politicaltheory, and so on and on.

Purpose and direction

The orthodoxy is that the course of evolution has not beenpurposive. It may be possible to perceive a direction in whichevolution has advanced but not anything which could bedescribed as its purpose or meaning. The direction, it is oftensaid, has been towards greater complexity, though whether thisis interpreted as increased complexity for individuals or for

is interpreted as increased complexity for individuals or forspecies has to be clarified. It seems the case that one cannotsay that evolutionary change has universally been towardsgreater complexity. "I would indeed deny that evolution (includingcultural evolution) proceeds in the direction of increasingcomplexity. Any parasite will serve as an example".(Rindos 1985:84). He seems to be right about parasites and indeed manyspecies which have shown no signs of increased complexity overmillions of years - but he is almost certainly wrong as regardshumanity (and many large-brained mammals).

For the evolution of humans, and especially for the developmentof human culture, the role of the brain has been the key factor."The most remarkable single feature in that progress has beenthe evolution of self-consciousness in the development of man...it has substituted the possibility of conscious control of evolutionfor the previous mechanism of the blind chances, of variationaided by the equally blind sifting process of natural selection."(Blakemore and Greenfield 1987: x) The direction has beentowards greater complexity as a means of increasing adaptabilityto environmental change and towards increased ability tomanipulate and modify the environment in the interests ofsurvival. The significance of human life in general can be seen inthis process, the significance of the individual human life as partof this process.

The nature of evolution

A few comments on the nature of evolution, particularly inrelation to human beings. The environment of the evolutionaryprocess is incessant change. What is selected is always andonly successful behaviour. That selection carries with it whateveris associated with that behaviour, morphological, social orneural. Or as Dawkins and others would argue, the significanceof evolution is to be found at the level of the gene. However, evenDawkins (Dawkins 1989: 191) does not think this is adequate inconsidering human evolution - we must "throw out" the gene asthe single determinant of human evolution and take account ofthe novel process of cultural evolution which has been the mainforce in human evolution for tens of thousands of years.

It can be argued that physical evolution, in the sense of thesurvival of DNA patterns in human beings, has become residual,almost to vanishing point in most modern populations; that theevolutionary principle of selective survival of physical strainshas, particularly in modern Western societies, been suspendedas a result of the extension of policies of social security withfew, or none, dying of starvation and the most active andcreative, the socially most successful, generally having the

fewest children. The technological separation of sexualintercourse from reproduction, the growing use of abortion, theshort duration of marriages, the growing use of artificialfertilisation, all operate to move patterns of reproduction awayfrom those which operated in the distant evolutionary past.Though a matter of acute controversy, at best the physical andintellectual components of modern Western society remain onaverage much the same from generation to generation but moreprobably the average physical and mental qualities deteriorate.

But if the evolutionary process has been suspended at the levelof the individual in industrialised societies, has it been suspendedat the level of the societies themselves, the nation states? Thereis no similarly well-established social security system for nations(though of course the outlines of a system have been drawn -mutual international aid, help for the third world etc.) Theinfluence of individual nation states on the general direction ofhumanity's development depends on their power, activity, vitality,originality - which, in turn, depend on the quality of the individualsand the structures in which they operate. Perhaps at one remove,then, classical evolutionary pressures are still operating, alongwith effects of famines, disease, earthquakes, populationpressure.

Individual human life

It is all very well to consider the evolutionary significance of thehuman species as a whole, but is it plausible, or possible todemonstrate the significance of an individual life? Many eminentpeople have felt that the individual life has no significance."Everybody must wonder from time to time if there is any realpurpose in life. ... For what reason do we live our lives at all?"(Hoyle 1983:6) "the course of my existence. ... at bottom it hasbeen nothing but pain and burden, and I can affirm that during thecourse of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of genuinewell-being." (Goethe) "Is there in life any purpose which theinevitable death which awaits me does not undo and destroy? ...the meaningless absurdity of life ... is the only incontestableknowledge accessible to man" (extracts from James 1960[1901-1902]: 146, 158) "Naître, s'agiter, disparaître, c'est la tout ledrâme éphemère de la vie humaine. ... Si rien n'est immortel ennous, que cette vie est peu de chose! ... la vie consiste à répéterle type humain et la ritournelle humaine comme l'ont fait, le font etle feront, aux siècles des siècles, des légions de tessemblables." (Amiel 1922 II:208-209) "Individual men, burdenedwith fear, want and sorrow, dance into the arms of death. Asthey do they never weary of asking what ... the whole tragi-comedy is supposed to mean. They call on Heaven for an answer

but Heaven stays silent. Instead of a voice from Heaven therecome along priests with revelations." (Schopenhauer 1970: 180)

William James, from whom some of these extracts are drawn,was contemptuous of the whingers but at the same time showedhis acute awareness of the problem of individual life: "The moodof a Schopenhauer or a Nietzsche ... The sallies of the twoGerman authors remind one, half the time, of the sick shrieking oftwo dying rats.... The fact that we can die is what perplexes us... We need a life not correlated with death" (James 1960[1901-1902]: 50, 148)

Many have felt that there ought to be something of lasting valuein life: "Why is there not a discovery in life? Something one canlay hands on and say "This is it'?" (Virginia Woolf 1953: 86)"Laisser un monument, aere perennius, un ouvrage indéstructible,qui fasse penser, sentir, rêver, à travers une suite degénérations" (Amiel 1922 II:238)) "To leave an imprint" (A studenton the radio)

These are the views of non-scientists for the most part and maybe dismissed as over-reaction by sensitive individuals. Howshould we consider the position of the individual from a morebiological aspect? "What is the place of the individual in all this?At first sight, the individual human being appears as a little,temporary, and insignificant creature, of no account in the vastenterprise of mankind as a whole".(Huxley 1968: 97)

In biological orthodoxy, the individual can be evolutionarilysignificant only in a very narrow sense: does he\she leaveoffspring which prolong the existence of his genes - individualgenes or complexes of genes? Or if not leaving such offspring,has he\she promoted the continued existence of `his\her' genesby way of assisting brothers' or sisters` children etc., an evennarrower form of evolutionary significance? Has he\she achievedsubstantial 'inclusive fitness' - interpreted by J.B.S. Haldane in1974 as "I'd lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins".

The evolutionary significance of the individual may be moreimportant through his cultural activity than through his "inclusivefitness" in the strict sense. Anyone who brings about majorchange in how individual human beings or human groups behaveand interact can be reckoned also to be a major evolutionaryforce

Human evolution nowadays is not a simple matter of genes andgene complexes; there is the complicated interaction of geneticinheritance and culture. A cultural contribution by an individualcan readily have genetic effects on the wider population, and

even perhaps on the species as a whole. For example, thefounder of a religion, laying down rules accepted by a populationon such matters as adultery, incest, marriage, chastity, musthave long- term effects on the genetic composition and geneticvariation of populations much greater than could be attributed toany single individual through his individual genetic `fitness'.

The same sort of argument can be applied to other forms ofcontribution made by individuals to the culture in which they findthemselves. This is most obviously so in the case of scientificinnovators. The originator of new, effective treatments fordisease can have tremendous evolutionary significance not onlyfor his own community but perhaps for the human species as awhole. Evolutionary significance for the individual attaches notonly to outstanding individuals such as these - insofar as anyindividual produces a lasting effect in some segment of humanculture he/she may be reckoned to be evolutionarily significant.

If one takes the extreme view represented by Dawkins' "selfishgene", then one is led to attribute no evolutionary significance tothe individual human being as such. Adherents of the narrow,genetic view of evolution may say that the cultural innovation anindividual makes and the persistence of that particular culturalinnovation are directly caused by the genetic predisposition ofthe individual and the continuation of that genetic predispositionin succeeding populations.

If, at the most physiological level, the human social culture oftoday controls and modifies human reproductive behaviour, as inmany ways it does, and leaves room for individual decision to anextent without any past precedent, for example: with thetechnologies of contraception, abortion, in vitro fertilisation plusoncoming much more powerful techniques of genetic engineering,then to attribute significance only to relative "inclusive fitness"seems like a zoomorphic intellectual superstition.

In the modern process of human evolution, "inclusive fitness" inthe strict sense is perhaps the least important way in which anindividual life qualifies as having evolutionary significance, at anyrate in populations which have an advanced urban culture."Natural Selection in man has fallen chiefly upon groups, notupon individuals, and differences in the nature and organisationof human groups are determined chiefly by what we can best sumup as differences of tradition in the widest sense of theterm."(Huxley 1926: 47)

If this is so, then apart from the undesigned effects onpopulation gene frequencies as a consequence of religiouscelibacy, or new medical procedures, then the individual through

his contribution to the success of the group can have a long-termevolutionary significance for humanity generally. The fittest of alltypes of community to survive would be that which could bestforecast the future, the changes the world and Universe wouldundergo and it is individuals who help to shape communities suchas these, through their contribution to the moral and socialstructures or to scientific and technological advance, to thelanguage-based dissemination of systems of ideas which benefitthe community. Language, morality, social structure, science,technology can be seen as important evolutionary developments.

Brain mind and consciousness

The role of the human brain has been an interesting evolutionaryexperiment - an animal body (emotions, sensations) with anadvanced brain. The contrast with the earlier world-dominantspecies is striking: a stegosaur, an armoured dinosaur roughlythe size of an elephant, had a braincase only big enough tocontain a brain the size of a large walnut.

The central nervous system is Nature's greatest invention forenabling organisms to deal competently with theirenvironment.(Granit 1977: 9) What we have is a neurosensoryorganisation that has evolved in the service of survival. Ourcognitive apparatus is itself an objective reality, which hasacquired its present form in contact with and adaptation toequally real things in the outer world. (Lorenz 1977: 7) Theincrease of brain size in terms of the relation between brain sizeand body surface turned to the external world is responsible forthe success of our highly adaptable species. (Granit 1977: 54)

How far mind or consciousness evolved from some precursor inlower organisms is a matter of speculation. Some for examplethink that mind or consciousness must have existed in otherorganisms before man.(Huxley 1926: 71) On this view the mind ofman has evolved from the mind of some non-human mammal;something of the same general nature must be present in lowerorganisms. The nervous systems of all animals are built of thesame matter and on the same structural, functional, genetic andmetabolic principles. The rudiments of consciousness or self-awareness must have been associated with the very existence ofthe 'neural'. (Szentagothai 1987: 324-326)

An alternative view is that the advent of consciousness wasdependent on the growth of brain-size, perhaps plus thedevelopment of language making possible a new form of self-perception. This is similar to the view that consciousness isexactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sakeof steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate

of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulateitself.

However this may be it is obvious that the critical next stage forhumanity took us beyond what we suppose even large-brainedmammals to be capable of, whatever consciousness may be andhowever the neural complexity may function to produce it. In asurvey (Highfield 1994) of varying views on consciousness,Richard Gregory commented that there is no theory ofconsciousness. The best one can do is to point at where onemight expect to find it. The survey showed a range of views from"brains cause consciousness in exactly the same sense thatstomachs cause digestion; the computer-view of consciousnessis essentially pre-scientific superstition" (Searle) to the directly-opposed: "the brain is a parallel computer - functioning in termsof competing multiple drafts (like the Reagan presidency) with nosingle centre in charge but many working in parallel to makesense of events and prepare decisions" (Dennett). Another viewsees consciousness as the possibility of arousing an assemblyof appropriate memories, perhaps as a result of input brainactivity persisting, even up to half a second, in competingworking memories.(Taylor)

In whatever way consciousness may be characterised, humanconsciousness and the advance of the human mind have yieldedgreat advantages. The development of mind has meant thepossibility of summing-up ever more and more power and fineadjustment of response in the present, in the single act (Huxley1926: 24)). Consciousness has been the source of survival-valuefrom the great advantage the organism derives operating with aninternal model of the world-and-the-self-in-the-world.(Sommerhoff1990:283) Science, it has been said, could not arise in a worlddevoid of conscious beings.(Longuet Higgins in Highfield 1994)

What other advantages could consciousness afford?Consciousness makes possible long-range anticipation ofevents; consciousness has added a new awareness of time;humanity has acquired the ability to categorize experience interms of past and future. Conscious awareness has been anenormous asset; its raison d'etre is perfection of control over theenvironment. In adaptability conscious man exceeds all otherspecies.(Granit 1977: 74)

How, starting from our body and our brain, do we arrive at reliableknowledge about what is outside us, how do we become able topredict the development of a process, the development of theprocess of existence? It is through the mapping of theenvironment in the brain. Understanding is made possible throughthe formation in the brain of a 'model' of the complex of events tobe explained; an internal model of the world, including some kind

of model of the organism itself.(Szentagothai 1987: 324)

The gain in knowledge achieved by trial and error by the genomeresults in the formation of an image of the material world withinthe living system.(Lorenz 1977: 23) The growth in the size of thehuman brain has vastly extended and accelerated this process.Not only is the individual human being able to map his personalenvironment in his brain and body but humanity collectively canbe seen as a great mosaic eye, a many-faceted eye opening onall time and all space, looking to the future as well as the past.And consciousness, too, is part of the reality we perceive, asNiels Bohr has pointed out.(Granit 1977: 71)

Culture

"Are there any good reasons for supposing our own species tobe unique? I believe the answer is yes. Most of what is unusualabout man can be summed up in one word 'culture'." (Dawkins1989: 189) What makes us human are all the aspects whichcollectively can be described as culture: language, gesture,empathy, love, morality, music, art, mathematics, science,modelling the universe, shaping the future.

Conceptual thought and speech changed all man's evolution byachieving something which is equivalent to the inheritance ofacquired characters.(Lorenz 1966: 205) Itzkoff refers to "themysterious and unique nature of man's language.. It is thedevelopment of written language which marks the transition fromthe intuitive linguistic world view to a more discursive andcognitive representation of experience. This in turn eventuallyleads to mathematics and science". (Itzkoff 1971: 119) Perhapsin the light of investigations elsewhere, we would not now thinklanguage is so mysterious but it is surely right that language is atthe foundation of culture.

Never until the origin of speech was it possible for a whole seriesof generations to be linked together by experience. Evolutionsince the time of origin of this new process has consistedessentially in the enlargement and specialisation of aggregationsof minds, and the improvement of the tradition which constitutesthe mode of inheritance for these aggregations. (Huxley 1868:27)

The ever growing extent and complexity of human culture -manifested necessarily in the group, the human society, and notpossible for the individual in total isolation - was founded on thedevelopment of language. It is language which made theexistence of moral codes possible, allowed the perception ofkinship systems, laid the basis for continuing social structures,

allowed religions to be founded and science to progress. Withgroup feeling probably an elaboration of the mother-infantrelation, language made possible the growth of the groupsolidarity, the social consciousness characteristic of humanity.

Morality is a particularly important element in human culture andthe evolution of social structure. "No society is healthy orcreative or strong unless that society has a set of commonvalues that give meaning and purpose to group life".{Kekes 1990:186} It has of course been argued that while language makestradition and so continuing morality possible, it can also besocially destructive. So Wolff writes: "There are three godfathersof the crime wave now swamping personal security acrossEurope. [Freud, Marx, Darwin] ... Darwin [by his emphasis] on anevolution which blurred the uniqueness and therefore the dignityof man] consigned the morality of individual responsibility and ofpersonal culpability to the intellectual dustbin". (Wolff) Thisattack would have surprised Darwin who attached greatimportance to morality as a factor in the success of humangroups - but it perhaps makes the fair point that the theory ofevolution as currently expounded is not seen as giving anyexplicit support to the structures and traditions on which humansocieties depend. Is there any way in which evolutionary theorycould be usefully constructive - a subject I deal with later in thispaper.

The other vastly important aspect of human culture is thedevelopment of science. Scientific truth is wrested from a realityexisting outside and independent of the human brain. Since thisreality is the same for all human beings, all correct, scientificresults will always agree with each other.(Lorenz 1977: 249)

Obviously the emergence of the capacity for culture has been themajor aspect of humanity's evolutionary history but there is anunsettled debate about the relation between physical and culturalevolution. Is cultural 'evolution' in fact a misapplication of theterm? How can the genetic basis of physical evolution be relatedto the processes of cultural growth and change? One approach,by Boyd and Richerson(1985) and rather similarly by Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman(1981), argues that cultural and physicalevolution are different but parallel processes with different modesof operation. Another approach, by Rindos, has sought areinterpretation of cultural evolution in a Darwinian framework:selection operates similarly in both cultural and physicalevolution and is " 'blind' to the type of coding (genetic or cultural)underlying behavior". Selection is 'fundamentally the differentialreproductive success of specific individuals bearing certaintraits'.(Rindos 1985: 74)) Carneiro observed in the peercommentary (Rindos 1985: 77), I think correctly, on Rindos'

paper that cultural selection, as such, operates not onindividuals but on culture traits and on societies.

Perhaps a reconciliation can be found in two ways: first, byrecognising that in human evolution selection at the group level isnot only possible but the main line of advance. Secondly, byobserving that cultural changes can have major geneticconsequences. Ideas change the environment (directly andindirectly) and change the neural structure of members of thesociety. Ideas change behaviour and response to theenvironment. Changes in behaviour change the possibilities andprobabilities of physical survival and multiplication of individualhuman beings. The 'culture' modifies the determination of thefitness to survive. Thus it alters the genetic pool of a population.All cultures, in a sense, are genetic engineering. The point isclearly made by Jacques Monod: "Le point important c'est que,pendant des centaines de milliers d'années, l'évolution culturellene pouvait pas ne pas influencer l'évolution physique; chezl'homme plus encore que chez tout autre animal. C'est lecomportement qui oriente la pression de sélection. Les traitsculturels eux-mêmes devaient exercer leur pression sur l'évolutiondu génome."(Monod 1970: 179)

As a side issue, one might comment on the relation of sexuality,culture and society. The evolution of sex and the evolution of thebrain can be seen as part of the same story: the evolution ofvariability in response to a constantly changing environment.Freud saw culture essentially as a displacement activity forsexual expression. According to this view, the capacity todevelop cultural interests depends on one's ability to sublimate or`neutralise' sexual energy. (Storr 1988:152)

Freud built his theories on the experiences of the sick. A quitedifferent interpretation is possible. As Storr remarks, it is not onlyintimate personal relationships which provide life with meaning.There is also the sense of belonging to a community - or thesense of purpose in life (Storr 1988: ix, 13). Jung recorded thatabout a third of his cases were not suffering from any clinicallydefinable neurosis, but from the senselessness and aimlessnessof their lives (quoted by Storr 1988: 193). If sexuality is to beaccorded a role in cultural evolution, perhaps one might considerthe essential purposelessness of the life of the male individual(contrasted with the natural purposefulness of the life of thefemale individual) as a principal driving force. In the modernworld, rather than culture being a sublimation of sexuality, sexcan be seen as a displacement activity in the absence of anyother purposeful activity. The evolutionary significance of theindividual in the modern world lies not in his sexual but in hiscultural activities.

Religious aspects

Religion has been a major expression of culture and played amajor role in guiding the development of human societies. Howshould one relate the phenomenon of religion, which typicallyseeks to give purpose and direction to the life of the adherent, tothe process of human evolution? Most of the major religions,surprisingly, emerged at much the same period in history. In whathas been called the sixth-century [BC] revolt, seven worldreligions appeared within 50 years of each other -Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism,Vedanta Monism, Taoism - to which should be added theemergence in the West of Pythagoreanism. The different religionsoffer diverse accounts of the world and diverse prescriptions forhuman life. One of the more attractive is the Zoroastrian. "Thespirit of happiness permeates not only Zoroastrian ethics, butalso their rituals ... It has no doctrine of original sin, nor of oneman dying to save all. Every man is responsible for his own partin the cosmic battle, and for his own destiny" (Beaver, Pierce etal. 1982: 87). Shinto sees each man not as solitary but as partof a long continuous history from ancestors to descendants, andas a constituent of social groups. Ancestor worship generallylocates the individual as part of continuing human society.

The existence of religion has been a fact of human history anddevelopment. "Religion is a way of life and an attitude to theuniverse. ... Statements of fact made in its name are untrue indetail but often contain some truth at their core." (Haldanequoted in Mackay 1977) It is possible to see religion as anordering system (like a geometric construction to solve aproblem) or as a necessary, however arbitrary, social system.What might be the role of religion in an evolutionary context? Areligion typically deals with (accounts for) death, time, eternity,sorrow, hope, desire, despair, love, good, evil, the 'meaning oflife', purpose, community, sexuality.

Religion as part of the evolutionary predisposition of the humanmind satisfying the ache of not understanding? or religion evenas an instrument of evolution? Religion has after all been animportant force in human evolution in the narrowest physicalsense, by its prescriptions affecting reproduction - and by itsmotivating force in the struggle between groups, populations,nations. This issue has been considered by Reynolds and Tanner"Are religions adaptive? Do they help their members survive bypromoting behaviors that are suitable in a particularenvironment? ... [religions] establish the right and wrongconditions for conception to take place, the rights and wrongs of

abortion and infanticide; they control adolescent sexuality, theyregulate marriage, divorce, remarriage andwidowhood".(Reynolds 1992: 206)

This very detailed role of religion is apparent in the OldTestament and in the Koran: "You are forbidden to take inmarriage your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, yourpaternal and maternal aunts, the daughters of your brothers andsisters, your foster-mothers, your foster sisters, the mothers ofyour wives, your step-daughters who are in your charge, born ofthe wives with whom you have lain...and the wives of your own-begotten sons. Henceforth, you are also forbidden to take inmarriage two sisters at one and the same time. You are alsoforbidden to take in marriage married women, except captiveswhom you own as slaves".(Dawood 1959: 368)

In its original and essential function, religio - religion - is thebinding together of all our knowledge of the Universe, and with itall our life and cultures. Religion has been a factor in groupsurvival and success. It has been practically useful and centralto human psychology: "The predisposition to religious belief isthe most complex and powerful force in the human mind and in allprobability an ineradicable part of human nature" (Wilson 1978:169). Hobbes gave a sceptical account of its origin: "in thesefour things, opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes,devotion towards what men fear, and taking of things casual forprognostics consisteth the natural seed of religion; which byreason of the different fancies, judgements and passions ofseveral men, have grown up into ceremonies so different, thatthose which are used by one man, are for the most partridiculous to another". (Hobbes 1909[1651]: 85)

What religion offers to the individual human can be contrastedwith what science, including evolutionary science, has to offer."Nature has no one distinguishable ultimate tendency with whichit is possible to feel a sympathy" (James 1960 [1901-2]: 469).Religion can be seen as a provisional attempt at scientific truth.What does it achieve? It unites those who adhere to it; itprovides a structure of beliefs which they share; it provides ashared view of life and death, of the situation of humanity inexistence; it provides a prescription for their relationships one toanother, and for the individual to himself and to existence; itseeks to harmonise co-existence of those who adhere to thereligion; it strengthens the group to which those who adhere tothe religion belong.

In the modern world, religion in many societies has lost its force.Where it still is influential, in an ever more closely interactingworld system, religions create strife as much as they support

group social structures. In the 19th century with the advance ofscience, many, whilst recognising the necessity of religio in thefundamental sense, beliefs to bind together one's view of theworld and existence, found it impossible to accept the apparentlyarbitrary formulations of traditional religion: "Ces réligions,fondées sur un cosmos enfantin et sur une histoire chimérique del'humanité, peuvent-elles affronter l'astronomie et la géologiecontemporaines? " (Amiel 1922 II:164) "We must therefore, Ithink, bid a definite good-bye to dogmatic theology."(James1960[1901-1902: 430)

If traditional religions are, for many, no longer credible or useful,can science fill their place, do any or all of the useful things thatthe religions once did? How could science be presented orchanged to do all these things? Would it be desirable for scienceto attempt this? Looked at objectively, the scientific account oflife and existence goes far beyond religious accounts. AsDawkins says "The modern scientific view of the universe isincomparably more wonderful than any competing view, at anytime in history, in any culture or religion, anywhere."(Dawkins)Could science function as a replacement for religion? Eachreligion sought to accommodate whatever was generally thoughtto be reality at the time, life, death and the universe, the socialrelationships of the time. Evolution also can be seen as a(scientific) creation story; so Edward Wilson says that theevolutionary epic is probably the best myth we will everhave.(Wilson 1978: 201)) That there is a need for somethingmore satisfying than physical and biological scientific theory ascurrently presented seems obvious. Again quoting Monod: thereremains "l'angoisse qui nous contraint à chercher le sens del'éxistence. Angoisse créatrice de tous les mythes, de toutes lesréligions, de toutes les philosophies et de la science elle-même."(Monod 1970: 193)

The human in the universe

It may seem pretentious to ask what the significance might be ofhumanity, or the individual human being, in the universe. Thegreat scientist, Lord Rutherford(1968) once said:"Don't let mecatch anyone talking about the Universe in my department" andmany lesser scientists might well agree with him. Quantitativelythe individual human being is insignificant in the grand picture, theratio to the mass of the universe approximately 1:10^48. Induration also, the human species is negligible: the worldmanaged without man for 99.975% of its time.

Nevertheless even distinguished scientists like Stephen Hawkingfeel the need for something more than science currently offers:

"A complete, consistent, unified theory is only the first step; ourgoal is a complete understanding of the events around us, and ofour own existence".(Hawking 1988: 168) Looking to the future ofhumanity which one hopes will have a considerably longerduration than its past, can we see the outline of an evolutionaryaccount which may go some way to satisfying us?

The future of evolution

May we consider the distant future? What do we know about it?The cosmologists present varying accounts. "A universe thatrecollapses ends in a `big crunch'.. there are two basicalternatives, the bang-crunch universes and the bang-whimperuniverses.... there is no way in which the available observations... can distinguish whether our Universe is open [continuing forever] or closed [essentially a black hole ending in a bigcrunch]".(Gribbin 1986: 142-144) On the most widely acceptedview, we have at least another 15 billion years before theuniverse contracts in on itself in the Big Crunch. There is time fora lot of human evolution, development, action. How are we goingto spend the next 15 billion years?

It will not be plain sailing: "the size of the sun has increased by athird since its formation some 5000 million years ago. Iteventually grows so huge that it will eat up the inner planets,Mercury and Venus. The most unpleasant surprise [fromcomputer simulation] is that the earth will be inhabitable for only aquarter of the time that had been expected. The computer modelreveals that we shall have to start evacuating the earth within a'mere' 1,100 million years. The expanding sun will stop just shortof eating up the Earth and Moon. It will then shrink to the size ofthe earth and become a white dwarf star. Another 5000 millionyears pass and the sun has become a black dwarf". (Berry 1994)

Some scientific fiction writers have attempted to picture what thefuture developments for humanity might be, for example, H.G.Wells. The most ambitious was Olaf Stapledon11, adistinguished though little known author. "Moskowitz ranks himwith Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne and H.G. Wellsas one of the five 'immortals' of the genre". Brian Aldiss insiststhat Stapledon stands alone with Wells as "an indisputable giantamong science fiction writers past and present. Eric Rabkin andRobert Scholes concur".(Fiedler 1983: 5-6)

The objective is to consider the significance of human liveslooking ahead to an indefinite future. The assumption is thatevolution is not suspended or diverted but going ahead at fullspeed. The future is something that is going to happen, that isgoing to be, something definite and real. We are the real future of

going to be, something definite and real. We are the real future ofthose who lived before us. It becomes reasonable to considerthe possibilities opening up for future human evolution. I havediscussed how evolution seems to have had a direction, at anyrate as far as human evolution is concerned. The question iswhether that direction has been correctly identified as beingtowards greater complexity - or is it more specifically towardscomplexity adequate to the complexity of the structures andsystems in which the human species finds itself? - a complexitycapable of coping with, absorbing, the irruption of theunpredicted, the unforeseen, the unexpected?

If we are right in identifying the direction of evolution, then we canspeculate about the future, extrapolating the direction ofevolutionary change, considering the possibilities opening up forfuture human evolution. Of course, we, individually or as aspecies, could be knocked down tomorrow by a (cosmic) bus.One cannot rule out the suspicion that the human race is to besuperseded, how we don't know (though no doubt the `thinkingdinosaur' also didn't know!)

Marvin Minsky has suggested that humanity will be superseded byintelligent machines, the intelligent computer of the next century.Humanity, in comparison, he opines, is of little significance: "littlechimpanzees running round in clothes". In the very distant futurethere might be more biological replacements for us if we destroyourselves - candidates might be the ants or the birds or the apesor some sea-creatures. I do not know the origin of Itzkoff'sspeculation: "It has been hypothesized that the lifetime of aspecies averages between five and ten million years; when oneconsiders that it is hardly fifty thousand years since homosapiens climbed out onto his special evolutionary limb one daresnot imagine the possibilities and directions that his knowledge willtake". (Itzkoff 1971: 152)

Some views are more optimistic than others. So, in the 19thcentury, Amiel (1922 II:329): "On finira par tâter le pouls àl'espéce et au globe aussi facilement qu'à un malade. L'activitésera convertie en conscience; Gée s'apercevra elle-même." (ananticipation of Teilhard de Chardin). Others rely on science -"scientific work and lucid thought are persistent and cumulative... Man, consciously controlling his own destinies and thedestinies of all life upon this planet" relying on "a picture of theuniverse that is generally valid and divested of fabulousinterpretations." (Wells and Huxley 1931: 865, 878)

There have been more pessimistic or more realisticprognostications of which Stapledon's work is an example: "Lastand First Men is a two-billion-year-long mytho-history whichimagines eighteen succeeding species of mankind, before their

inevitable end) ... And even if by some miracle mankind achievesa happier state, what then. Sooner or later some unimportantastronomical event will casually destroy us.... In the light of theirimpending extinction, however, they dedicated themselves to the'forlorn task of disseminating among the stars the seeds of anew humanity".(Fiedler 1983: 58, 222)

The scientific structure of thought has been part of the rightdevelopment, partial but valuable - and is strengthened by andstrengthens the new perception of the direction of developmentof the universe. Is there any reason why an enlarged evolutionarytheory should not be socially constructive? There is room forshorter-range orthodox speculation as well as speculation aboutthe very distant future. For example, with current changes insexual behaviour one might consider whether at last the engine isbeing uncoupled from the evolutionary train. What might be theevolutionary implications of current social and sexual patterns? -the spread of homosexuality, of a single-female social pattern, ofthe decline of marriage and the growth of divorce, of sexseparated more and more from reproduction, the implications ofabortion, contraception, and artificial fertilisation and perhapsartificial incubation, of genetic engineering. In terms ofconventional evolutionary biology all these developments mustsurely have major long-term consequences. This sort of enquirycould be the start of a new type of evolutionary theory, looking tothe future as much as to the past.

The other approach would be in looking to the much more distantfuture. What are we not foreseeing? How could we be preparing,protecting against the irruption of the unpredictable (from withinor without the human system), preserving the science, thetechnology, the unified understanding required to create andmaintain the adequate neural complexity, preserving the human'social' system on which the sciences etc. depend? Perhaps theprospects are not too bad. The distribution of the scientific andtechnological capability across many countries is in itself aprotection against catastrophe. We are fortunate to have thereservoir, repository or safe-deposit for the scientific andtechnological system offered and constituted by language.

The effort to foresee the near and more distant future in anevolutionary perspective, to consider how we might guard againstfuture threats to the species, may have an additional value,injecting the idea of purpose and goals into the evolutionaryaccount of human development, presenting an understandablepicture of man's position and prospects in the universe,suggesting how the work of the individual in his short life, thescientist, the engineer, the politician, or the orderly, constructive,ordinary citizen, on whom the social fabric depends, can

contribute to a larger purpose, equal in its ambition andmagnificence to anything that religions have been able to offer.

REFERENCES

Amiel, Henri-Fredéric. (1822-1882) 1922. Fragments d'un journalintime. 14th edition. Paris: Librairie Fischbacher. Beaver, R. Pierce et al. eds. 1982. The World's Religions. Tring,Herts.: Lion. Berry, Adrian. 1994. Sunday Telegraph: 3 April. Blakemore, C. and S. Greenfield eds. 1987. Mindwaves. Oxford;Basil Blackwell. Boyd, Robert and Peter J. Richerson. 1985. Culture and theEvolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cavalli-Sforza, L.L. and M.W. Feldman. 1981. CulturalTransmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach. PrincetonN.J.: Princeton University Press. Crawford, Charles. 1992. Psychology. In The SociobiologicalImagination. ed. by Mary Maxwell, pp. 303-318. New York: SUNY. Dawkins, Richard. 1989. The Selfish Gene. 2nd edition. London:Oxford University Press. Dawkins, Richard. 1994. Daily Telegraph Dawood, N.J. 1959. The Koran: A Translation. London: AllenLane. Dennett, Daniel C. 1991. Consciousness Explained. du Nouy, Lecomte. 1947. Human Destiny. New York: Longmans.Green and Co. Fiedler, Leslie A. 1983. Olaf Stapledon: A Man Divided. New York:Oxford University Press. Freud, Sigmund. 1940. Group Psychology and the Analysis of theEgo. Trans. James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press. Galperine, Charles ed. 1976. Biology and the Future of Man.Paris: Universities of Paris [McGraw Hill] Granit, Ragnar. 1977. The Purposive Brain. Cambridge, MA: MITPress. Gribbin, John. 1986. In search of the big bang: Quantum physicsand cosmology. London: Transworld. Haldane, J.B.S. 1974. "I'd lay down my life for two brothers oreight cousins". New Scientist 8 August 1974. Handler, Philip ed. 1970. Biology and the Future of Man. NewYork: Oxford University Press. Hawking, Stephen W. 1988. A brief history of time. London:Bantam. Highfield, Roger. 1994. Daily Telegraph 19 January. Hobbes, Thomas. 1909[1651]. Leviathan. Reprint with Essay byW.G.P. Smith. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hoyle, Fred. 1983. The Intelligent Universe. London: MichaelJoseph. Huxley, Julian. 1926. Essays of a Biologist. London: Chatto and

Windus. Huxley, Julian. 1968. Evolutionary Humanism. In Wagar, W.Warren. ed. 1968. Science, Faith and Man: European ThoughtSince 1914. pp. 87-98. London Macmillan. Itzkoff, Seymour W. 1971. Ernest Cassirer: Scientific knowledgeand the concept of man. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of NotreDame Press. James, William. 1960. [1901-2] The Varieties of ReligiousExperience: A study in human nature. London: Collins. Kekes, John. 1980. The Nature of Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell. Lorenz, Konrad. 1966. On Aggression. Translated by MarjorieLatzke. London: Methuen. Lorenz, Konrad. 1977. Behind the Mirror: A search for a naturalhistory of human knowledge. London: Methuen. Lumsden, Charles J. and Edward O. Wilson. 1981. Genes, Mindand Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press. Mackay, Alan L. 1977. The Harvest of a Quiet Eye: A selection ofscientific quotations. Bristol and London: The Institute of Physics.Matthen, Mohan and Bernard Linsky eds. 1988. Philosophy andBiology. Calgary: University of Calgary Press. Monod, Jacques. 1970. Le Hasard et la Nécessité. Paris: Editionsdu Seuil. Pollard, Jeffrey W. ed. 1984. Evolutionary theory: Paths into theFuture. Chichester: John Wiley. Portin, Petter. 1993. The concept of the gene: short history andreal status. Quarterly Review of Biology 68: 173-223. Reynolds, Vernon. 1992. Socioecology of Religion. In TheSociobiological Imagination. ed. by Mary Maxwell, pp. 205-222.New York: SUNY. Rindos, David. 1985. Darwinian Selection; Symbolic variationand the evolution of Culture. Current Anthropology 26: 65-88 Rutherford, Ernest [Lord] 1968. "Don't let me catch anyonetalking about the Universe in my department. Quoted by JohnKendrew BBC3 26 July 1968 in a programme J.D.Bernal and theOrigin of Life. Schopenhauer, A. 1970. Essays and Aphorisms. Selected andtranslated by R.J. Hollingdale. Harmondsworth: Penguin.[fromwritings 1818-1851] p. 180 Sommerhoff, Gerd. 1990. Life, Brain and Consciousness: NewPerceptions through Targeted Systems Analysis. Amsterdam:North-Holland. Spencer, Herbert. 1904. Autobiography. Stapledon, Olaf. 1963[1930]. Last and First Men: A story of thenear and far future. Harmondworth: Penguin. Storr, Anthony. 1988. The School of Genius. London: AndreDeutsch. Szentagothai, J. 1987. The 'Brain-Mind' Relation: A

Pseudoproblem? In Mindwaves. ed. by C. Blakemore and S.Greenfield, 23-336. Oxford; Basil Blackwell. Tooby, J and L. Cosmides. 1992. The psychological foundationsof culture. In The Adapted Mind. ed. by J.H. Barkow and L.Cosmides. New York: Oxford University Press. Wagar, W. Warren. ed. 1968. Science, Faith and Man: EuropeanThought Since 1914. London Macmillan. Wells, H.G., Julian Huxley and G.P.Wells. 1931. The Science ofLife. London: Cassell Wilson, Edward O. 1975. Sociobiology The New Synthesis.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wilson, Edward O. 1978. On Human Nature. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press Wolff, William. Sunday Telegraph: 4 April 1993. Woolf, Virginia. 1953. A Writer's Diary. ed. by Leonard Woolf.London: Hogarth Press.

APPENDIX: THE NEXT TWO BILLION YEARS

Stapledon, Olaf 1930. Last and First Men: A story of the near and far future.Harmondworth: Penguin.

"a masterpiece ... among the most imaginat ive works ever writ ten" [BrianAldiss]

"one of my gods (the other, of course, is H. G. Wells) ... whose books are fullof lessons for our t ime" [Arthur C. Clarke]

Outline of Last and First Men

Preface:

"I have tried to invent a story which may seem a possible, or at least notwholly impossible, account of the future of man. ... the human race in itscosmic sett ing. ... an essay in myth creat ion ... the thought that it [ourpresent civilisat ion] may decay and collapse ... must be faced at least as apossibility. ... the whole enterprise of our race may after all be but a minorand unsuccessful episode in a vaster drama ...

"I have imagined the triumph of the cruder sort of Americanism over all thatis best and most promising in American culture. May this not occur in thereal world!

Extracts and episodes

"the defeated nat ion ... now became the most pacific ... a profound changeof heart ... chiefly in Germany

"the Russian state came increasingly under the influence of Western, andespecially American, finance... the Russo-German war ...

"This dread [of war] was one cause of the format ion of a EuropeanConfederacy, in which all the nat ions of Europe, save Russia, surrendered

their sovereignty to a common authority ... in every serious crisis it broke.

"a second-rate German author ... claimed that a heroic and obviously Nordicruled by divine right over an ... obviously Slavonic spirit .... Moscow, Leningradand Berlin were shattered from the air.

"a young Chinese physicist ... had been experiment ing to find means for theut ilizat ion of sub-atomic energy by the annihilat ion of matter ... anintolerable scorching sun ... suddenly the whole island leapt asunder ... agigant ic mushroom of steam and debris ...

Approx 2300 AD Sino-American War First World State founded

To AD 4000 Americanized world

The Dominance of Science

Science so complex that only a t iny fract ion of it could be mastered by onebrain - the huge science called subatomic physics

About two centuries after the format ion of the world state ... the t ime wasripe for a formal union of science and religion - the Sacred Order ofScient ists was founded

All the cont inents were by now minutely art ificialized

The whole American cont inent succumbed to a plague of pulmonary andnervous diseases..

The American madness spread to the other cont inents also and very soonall living t races of their civilizat ion vanished

During a hundred thousand years man remained in complete eclipse

After a brief revival the planet was so seriously damaged that mindhenceforth lay in deep slumber for ten more millions of years

The idea of irresist ible decay obsessed the race at this t ime. The wholemass of scient ific knowledge was rapidly lost ...

The revival of civilizat ion in Patagonia

It was found possible by means of a huge init ial expenditure of energy toannihilate the posit ive and negat ive charges in one not very common kind ofatom ... an inexhaust ible source of power

Which went out of control and destroyed most of the planet Of the twohundred million members of the human race, all were burnt or roasted orsuffocated within three months - all but thirty-five who happened to be inthe neighbourhood of the North Pole.

Who eventually devoted themselves to recording as much as they could ofPatagonian science and culture

It was some ten million years after the Patagonian disaster that the firstelements of a new human species appeared

An era of great geological change coupled with the effects of the

destruct ion of most of the surface of the planet

Evolut ion of divergent human species and development of intelligentmonkeys

For nearly a quarter of a million years the Second Men passed throughsuccessive phases of prosperity and decline

The brain of the second species threatened to outgrow the rest of its body

A virus, whose subt le derangement of the glandular system was neversuspected, ... propagated throughout the world a mysterious fat igue ... thevast lethargy produced a vast despond.

The third ... civilizat ion of the Second Men passed ... into a phase of brilliantnatural science.

It was t ime for man to take control of himself and remake himself upon anobler pattern.

The First Mart ian invasion. ... when the Second Men were gathering theirstrength for a great venture in art ificial evolut ion.

Another dark age followed after the bacterial weapons used to destroy theMart ians infected the human race also.

We have now followed man's career for some forty million years.

When the Second Men had remained in their strange racial t rance for aboutthirty million years ... a subt le chemical re-arrangement of the germ-plasmsuch that there ensued an epidemic of biological variat ion ... one new typeconsolidated itself as a new species, the Third Men.

Biological control through manipulat ion of the germ-plasm the racedeveloped a very remarkable new art ... plast ic vital art ... the product ion of aworldwide and perfect ly systemat ic fauna and flora.

It took this brightest of all the races of the third species many thousands ofyears of research to discover the more delicate principles of heredity, and todevise a technique by which the actual hereditary factors in the germ couldbe manipulated.

The First of the Great Brains

Those who sought to produce a super-brain... creat ing an organism whichconsisted of a brain twelve feet across ...

Let us pass on to the first t rue individual of the fourth human species.

A large circular brain-turret ... some forty feet in diameter He casually solved... the ancient problems of good and evil, of mind and its object , of the oneand the many, and of t ruth and error.

When some three thousand years had passed ... the unique individualdetermined to create others of his kind.... including a direct sensit ivity toradiat ion for telepathic communicat ion

And produced intelligent machines which destroyed the Third Men except

for a few specimens

Which ult imately they modified to produce the Fifth Men with a telepathiccapacity and a lifespan of thousands of years

Who eventually destroyed the great brains and relapsed into barbarism andthen advanced cont inually for millions of years

Unlimited power from the disintegrat ion of the atom

Some ten thousand million persons

Life-span extended to 50,000 years

As their science advanced they saw a t ime would come when mentalitywould be driven out of existence

The explorat ion of t ime

Research was concentrated on the possibility of flight through empty spaceand the suitability of neighbouring worlds

Clearly humanity must leave its nat ive planet It did not take the Fifth Menmany centuries to devise a tolerable means of voyaging in interplanetaryspace. Immense rockets were constructed, the mot ive power of which wasderived from the annihilat ion of matter.

Mars could not be made habitable

Colonisat ion of Venus

Migrat ion of whole human populat ion to Venus

Man's sojourn on Venus lasted somewhat longer than his whole career onearth.

The Sixth Men

Creat ion of the Seventh Men, the bat-like flying men, of very small size Whocommit ted mass suicide eventually

Development then of the Eighth Men who discovered that the sun wasabout to become a white dwarf

Migrat ion to Neptune after development of Ninth Men capable of living there

About halfway through period from man's origin to annihilat ion

Remaining period spent on Neptune

Ten more species followed unt il the last , the Eighteenth Men.

A million million of the Last Men

The visitor would doubt less be surprised to see no books. In every roomhowever there is a cupboard filled with minute rolls of tape, microscopicallyfigured. Each of these rolls contains matter which could not be cramped intoa score of your volumes. They are used in connect ion with a pocket-instrument the size and shape of the ancient cigaret te case.

The average length of life is not much less than a quarter of a millionterrestrial years.

It did not seem impossible that man himself was the germ of the world-soul..

In respect of the future, we are now sett ing about the forlorn task ofdisseminat ing among the stars the seed of a new humanity ... an art ificialhuman dust capable of being carried forward on the sun's radiat ion

Great are the stars and man is of no account to them... He proposed eventhat he should become the Flower of All Things, and that he should learn tobe the All-Knowing, the All- Admiring. Instead, he is to be destroyed. ... It isvery good to have been Man. ... a fair conclusion to this brief music that isman.