geocentric and anthropocentric illusion inspired by immeasurable
conceit. But Copernicus and Galilei came and demonstrated that the earth
does not stand still, but that it is a grain of cosmic matter hurled
into blue infinity and rotating since time unknown around its central
body, the sun, which originated from an immense primitive nebula.
Galilei was subjected to tortures by those who realized that this new
theory struck down many a religious legend and many a moral creed. But
Galilei had spoken the truth, and nowadays humanity no longer indulges
in the illusion that the earth is the center of creation.

But men live on illusions and give way but reluctantly to the progress
of science, in order to devote themselves arduously to the ideal of the
new truths which rise out of the essence of things of which mankind is a
part. After the geocentric illusion had been destroyed, the
anthropocentric illusion still remained. On earth, man was still
supposed to be king of creation, the center of terrestrial life. All
Species of animals, plants and minerals were supposed to be created
expressly for him, and to have had from time immemorial the forms which
we see now, so that the fauna and flora living on our planet have always
been what they are today. And Cicero, for instance, said that the
heavens were placed around the earth and man in order that he might
admire the beauty of the starry firmament at night, and that animals
and plants were created for his use and pleasure. But in 1856 Charles
Darwin came and, summarizing the results of studies that had been
carried on for a century, destroyed in the name of science the superb
illusion that man is the king and center of creation. He demonstrated,
amid the attacks and calumnies of the lovers of darkness, that man is
not the king of creation, but merely the last link of the zoological
chain, that nature is endowed with eternal energies by which animal and
plant life, the same as mineral life (for even in crystals the laws of