known to-day if we are to restore the lost balance to human
civilization.

*

There is a rule known to physicians that 'a true diagnosis of a case
contains in itself the therapy'. No true diagnosis is possible,
however, without investigation of the 'history' of the case. Applied to
our task, this means that we must try to find an aspect of human
development, both individual and historical, which will enable us to
recognize in man's own being the cause responsible for the peculiar
narrowing of the scope of scientific inquiry, as described by the
scientists cited above.

A characteristic of scientific inquiry, distinguishing it from man's
earlier ways of solving the riddles of the world, is that it admits as
instruments of knowledge exclusively those activities of the human soul
over which we have full control because they take place in the full
light of consciousness. This also explains why there has been no
science, in the true sense of the word, prior to the beginning of the
era commonly called 'modern' - that is, before the fifteenth century.
For the consciousness on which man's scientific striving is based is
itself an outcome of human evolution.

This evolution, therefore, needs to be considered in such a way that we
understand the origin of modern man's state of mind, and in particular
why this state of mind cannot of itself have any other relationship to
the world than that of a spectator. For let us be clear that this
peculiar relationship by no means belongs only to the scientifically
engaged mind. Every adult in our age is, by virtue of his