. Shaping the future of nature on and in the planet, with all of its
potential riches.

2. Perhaps also taking a hand in determining the future of other
celestial bodies making up our solar system.

3. Shaping human society, the man-made and man-remade human heritage
that plays so vital a role in determining the course of human
life--individual and social.

4. Shaping and guiding man--the gregarious, imaginative, venturesome,
productive--destructive, creative animal.

5. Building up in human society respect (reverence) for being, respect
for life with its multitudinous variations of opportunity for individual
and social activity.

6. Arousing interest and dedicating time, thought and energy to the new
science and new arts grouped together under the title Futurology.

7. Having a hand in perpetuating and shaping one segment of our
expanding universe in accord with the Cult of Excellence: good, better,
and best ever! This is an exciting, constructive, long-range project
worthy of the attention and devotion of any being, even the most
ambitious and omniscient.

8. Aiming at the Truth--the workability, improvement and the
perfectability of our planet Earth as a recognized, accepted and
essential part of our planetary chain and of our Island Universe.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

MAN COULD CHANGE HUMAN NATURE

Man could conserve natural resources; he could remake human society. But
man himself? There, perhaps, is the root of the problem we are
discussing.

Can man change himself? Can he change human nature? Could human beings
as we know them be transformed sufficiently to live and survive under
the life-style that replaces civilization?

In our universe as we know it today, from the least to the greatest,
from the most minute to the most extensive, change is one of the basic
principles of existence. Nature changes. Human society changes. Changes
in nature and in society are paralleled by changes in man
himself--changes in outlooks and purposes, changes in ways of feeling,
thinking and acting.

Human beings have lived under the aegis of tradition, custom,
habit--thinking and acting "normally" and "naturally" in ways accepted
by their forebears and followed by them with little or no regard for
reason, foresight, or creative imagination. Rudiments of all three
capacities were known to exist in human beings. On the whole, the status
quo has been preferred; innovation frowned upon and innovators
discouraged, denou