Fragile Flame

We have, in modern civilization, been given, unlike any that went before us, a taste of the enormous abundance, health and opportunity which the future may bring to our children. The alternative to scientific and technological civilization will guarantee for Mankind a regression into a second Stone Age, which will be terminal. Humans may live brief, stultified, animal existences filled with pain and terror, perhaps for a time under the rule of war-lords or shamans, as supplies of easily-obtained metal and fuel give out and the environment is denuded to provide the bare necessities of existence, with animal lives like those of the African savannah-dwellers from whom humanity sprang, this in turn ending in complete animalism or extinction. Or the continuance of spiritual, scientific, humanistic and technological heritage of Western civilization, may give Mankind the opportunity for a deeper and truer spiritual life, a more wonderful world, and the stars. Hal G. P. Colebatch, PhD, is the prize-winning author.