he truth of this inspiring vision. Certain
fundamental truths concerning the basic facts of Nature and humanity
especially impress us. A rapid survey may indicate the main features of
this mysterious identity and antagonism.

Mankind has gone forward by the capture and control of the forces of
Nature. This upward struggle began with the kindling of the first fire.
The domestication of animal life marked another great step in the long
ascent. The capture of the great physical forces, the discovery of coal
and mineral oil, of gas, steam and electricity, and their adaptation to
the everyday uses of mankind, wrought the greatest changes in the course
of civilization. With the discovery of radium and radioactivity, with
the recognition of the vast stores of physical energy concealed in the
atom, humanity is now on the eve of a new conquest. But, on the other
side, humanity has been compelled to combat continuously those great
forces of Nature which have opposed it at every moment of this long
indomitable march out of barbarism. Humanity has had to wage war against
insects, germs, bacteria, which have spread disease and epidemics and
devastation. Humanity has had to adapt itself to those natural forces
it could not conquer but could only adroitly turn to its own ends.
Nevertheless, all along the line, in colonization, in agriculture, in
medicine and in industry, mankind has triumphed over Nature.

But lest the recognition of this victory lead us to self-satisfaction
and complacency, we should never forget that this mastery consists to
a great extent in a recognition of the power of those blind forces, and
our adroit control over them. It has been truly said that we attain
no power over Nature until we learn natural laws and conform and adapt
ourselves to them.

The strength of the human race has been its ability not merely to
subjugate the forces of Nature, but to adapt itself to those it could
not conquer. And even this subjugation, science tells us, has not
resulted from any attempt to suppress, prohibit, or eradicate these
forces, but rather to transform blind and undirected energies to our own
purposes.

These great natural forces, science now asserts, are not all external.
They are surely concealed within the complex organism of the human being
no less than outside of it. These inner forces are no less imperative,
no less driving and compelling than the external forces of Nature. As
the old conception of the antagoni