But possibly the most important discovery we have made about ourselves is that Man is a Wild Animal. He cannot be tamed and remain Man; his genius is bound up in the very qualities which make him wild. With this self - knowledge, bleak, stern, and proud, goes the last hope of permanent peace on Earth; it makes world government unlikely and certainly unstable. Despite the fact that we are (as always) in a condition of marginal starvation, this fact makes all measures of population control futile - other than the ancient, grisly Four Horsemen, and even they are not effective; we finished World War III with a hundred million more people than when we started.
Not even the H - bomb could change our inner nature. We have learned most bloodily that the H - bomb does nothing that the stone axe did not do - and neither weapon could tame us. Man can be chained but he cannot be domesticated, and eventually he always breaks his chains.
Nor can we be "improved" by genetic breeding; it is not in our nature to accept it. Someday we may be conquered by super beings from elsewhere, then bred according to their notions - and become dogs, rather than wolves. (I'm betting that we will put up a fight!)
But, left to our own resources, improvements in our breed must come the hard way, through survival and we will still remain wild animals.(4)
But we have barely begun to study ourselves. Now that mankind has finally learned to read and write what can we expect him to accomplish?
We have no idea today of how self - awareness is linked to protoplasm. Now that we know that the ego survives the body we should make progress on this mystery.
Personal survival necessitates Cosmic Purpose as a "least hypothesis" for the universe. Scientists are tending to take teleology away from theologians and philosophers and give it a shaking. But concrete results this century seem unlikely. As of now, we still don't know why we are here or what we are supposed to do - but for the first time in history it is scientifically probable that the final answers are not null answers. It will be interesting indeed if one of the religious faiths turns out to be correct to nine decimals.
Since ESP talents seem to be independent of space-time it is theoretically possible that we may achieve a mental form of time travel. This is allowable under the mathematics being developed to describe mind phenomena. If so, we may eventually establish history, and even prophecy, as exact sciences.
On the physical side we can be certain that the speed - of - light barrier will be cracked this century. This makes it statistically likely that we will soon encounter races equal or superior to ourselves. This should be the most significant happening to mankind since the discovery of fire. It may degrade or destroy us, it may improve us; it cannot leave us unchanged.
On the mundane side we can expect a population of five billion by the middle of this century. Emigration to other planets will not affect the total here.
Scientific facts will continue to be discovered much faster than they can be classified and cross - referenced, but we cannot expect any accompanying increase in human intelligence. No doubt the few remaining illiterates will continue to be employed in the subscription departments of periodicals; the same bigmouths who now complain about rocket service to Luna (but who can't thread a needle themselves) will in 2050 be complaining about service to the stars (and they still won't be able to thread a needle).
Unquestionably the Twentieth Century will be referred to as the "Good Old Days," we will continue to view with alarm the antics of the younger generation, and we probably will still be after a cure for the common cold.
Notes : 1980
1. He's still a freak but he's all too common. There is a special circle in Hell for the "Educators" who decided that the Three R's really weren't all that important. Concerning our public schools today: Never have so many been paid so much for so little. I thank whatever gods there be that I went to school so many years ago that I had no choice but to be tightly disciplined in classes in which the teachers did not hesitate to fail and to punish.
My first - grade class had 63 kids in it, one teacher, no assistant. Before the end of the second semester all 63 could read.
2. Many people seem to feel that the "Bridey Murphy" case has been invalidated. Maybe so, maybe not - the investigative reporter who went to Ireland had no special qualifications and the "disproof' came from TIME magazine. TIME magazine probably publishes many facts
but since its founding in the early 1920'sIhave been on the spot eight or nine times when something that wound up as a news story in TIME happened. Not once - not once - did the TIME magazine story match what I saw and heard.
I have the "Bridey Murphy" recording and Bernstein's book about it. I am not an expert witness... but I found the recording highly interesting. To me it sounded like what it purported to be: regression under hypnosis to memory of a former existence. Some years later I learned from an ethical hypnotherapist (i.e., he accepted patients only by referrals from M.D.'s, his own doctorate being in psychology) that regression to what seemed to be former lives was a commonplace among patients of hypnotherapists - they discussed it among themselves but never published because they were bound by much the same rule as physicians and priests taking confession.
I have no data to offer of my own. I decided many years back that I was too busy with this life to fret about what happens afterwards. Long before 2001Iwill know... or I will know nothing whatever because my universe has ceased to exist.
3. Anyone today who simply brushes off ESP phenomena as being ridiculous is either pigheaded or ignorant. But I do not expect controlled telepathy by 2001; that is sheer fiction, intended to permit me to get in that bit about Tchaka, et al.
4. I lifted this "Man is a wild animal" thesis bodily from Charles Galton Darwin (grandson of the author of THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES) in his book THE NEXT MILLION YEARS, Doubleday, 1953. lam simply giving credit; I shan't elaborate here. But THE NEXT MILLION YEARS is a follow - on to THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES and is, in my opinion, one of most important works of this century. It has not been a popular book - but I seem to recall that his grandfather's seminal work wasn't too popular, either.
FOREWORD
This polemic was first published on Saturday 12 April 1958. Thereafter it was printed many other places and reprints of it were widely circulated inside and outside the science fiction community, inside and outside this country.
It brought down on me the strongest and most emotional adverse criticism I have ever experienced - not to my surprise.
After more than twenty years my "misdeed" seems to have been largely forgotten, or perhaps forgiven. But I do not ask to be forgiven and I do not want it to be forgotten. So I now republish it in permanent form. I have not consulted my editor or my publisher; each is free to denounce my opinions here expressed - but is not free to refuse this item while accepting the rest of this book.
A few specific details below are outdated by new technology - e.g., earthquakes can now be distinguished with certainty (we hope) from nuclear explosions, while other aspects of detection and inspection grow more complex. Technical details change; basic principles do not.
"Supreme excellence in war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
- Sun Tzu, ca. 350 B.C.
The Soviet Union is highly skilled at this - and so are the Chinese leaders. During the last twenty - odd years we have been outmaneuvered endlessly. Today it's the Backfire bomber; tomorrow it is an international (U.N.) treaty to socialize all aspects of space and thereby kill such enterprise as the L - 5 Society, Sabre, Otrag (already killed), Robert Truax's Do - It - Yourself projects. The treaty will permit a KGB agent ("A rose by any other name - ") to inspect in detail anything of ours, private or public, on the ground or in the sky, if it is in any way connected with space - or the KGB man claims to suspect that it might be.