New bottles for new wine, essays

It is as if man had been suddenly appointed managing director of the biggest business of all, the business of evolution—appointed without being asked if he wanted it, and without proper warning and preparation. What is more, he can’t refuse the job. Whether he wants it or not, whether he is conscious of what he is doing or not, he is in point of fact determining the future direction of evolution on this earth. This is his inescapable destiny, and the sooner he realizes it and starts believing in it, the better for all concerned.

“I believe in transhumanism”: once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind o existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Peking man. It will at last be consciously fulfilling its real destiny.

There have been all the applications of science, leading to a new and more comprehensive view of man’s possible control of nature. But then there was the rediscovery of the depths and horrors of human behaviour, as revealed by Nazi extermination camps, Communist purges, Japanese treatment of captives, leading to a sobering realization that man’s control over nature applies as yet only to external nature: the formidable conquest of his own nature remains to be achieved