influence in the civilizing of human
character.

Since, then, the challenge is the empowerment of humankind through a vast
increase in access to knowledge, the strategy that can make this possible
must be constructed around an ongoing and intensifying dialogue between
science and religion. It is--or by now should be--a truism that, in every
sphere of human activity and at every level, the insights and skills that
represent scientific accomplishment must look to the force of spiritual
commitment and moral principle to ensure their appropriate application.
People need, for example, to learn how to separate fact from
conjecture--indeed to distinguish between subjective views and objective
reality; the extent to which individuals and institutions so equipped can
contribute to human progress, however, will be determined by their
devotion to truth and their detachment from the promptings of their own
interests and passions. Another capacity that science must cultivate in
all people is that of thinking in terms of process, including historical
process; however, if this intellectual advancement is to contribute
ultimately to promoting development, its perspective must be unclouded by
prejudices of race, culture, sex, or sectarian belief. Similarly, the
training that can make it possible for the earth's inhabitants to
participate in the production of wealth will advance the aims of
development only to the extent that such an impulse is illumined by the
spiritual insight that service to humankind is the purpose of both
individual life and social organization.

V

It is in the context of raising the level of human capacity through the
expansion of knowledge at all levels that the economic issues facing
humankind need to be addressed. As the experience of recent decades has
demonstrated, material benefits and endeavors cannot be regarded as ends
in themselves. Their value consists not only in providing for humanity's
basic needs in housing, food, health care, and the like, but in extending
the reach of human abilities. The most important role that economic
efforts must play in development lies, therefore, in equipping people and
institutions with the means through which they can achieve the real
purpose of development: that is, laying foundations for a new social order
that can cultivate the limitless potentialities latent in human
consciousness.

The challenge to economic thinking is to accept unambiguously this purp