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moved; he showed that, on the basis of the known data, this was
a plausible hypothesis; it won acceptance because it was
in
accord
with the new individualistic climate of opinion.)
It is possible, therefore, that those assumptions which have been
regarded since the Renaissance as self-evident may appear to future
generations as mythological. A different world-picture may take
shape, reflecting a different set of values (religious self-transcendence
rather than self-assertion, contemplation of nature rather than con–
trol) and associated with whatever kind of social organization may
eventually become dominant.
Whether such a change should be supported or opposed de–
pends mainly upon whether
it
is likely to narrow or to broaden the
permissible scope of the human personality. The human race has
an unfortunate propensity for demanding factual certainty in areas
of reality which can be apprehended only through imaginative sym–
bols; and once a particular view of reality has become crystallized into
dogmas, then any values which may be inconsistent with it are
likely to be rejected as unreal. This has been true of the scientific
world-picture, in terms of which not only mystical but also aesthetic
emotion appears as essentially meaningless. Obviously any religious
world-picture is liable to comparable dangers; it may lead not merely
to the recognition that science has certain limits but to the prohibition
of scientific advance in those areas where it is appropriate. The
beginning of wisdom, it seems to me, would be to recognize that al–
though the extent to which we can ever acquire certain knowledge
about the universe is extremely limited, the human mind has, never–
theless, a need for some general framework of ideas; that while any
such framework should accord with known data, it must always be
largely a product of the creative and symbol-forming imagination;
and that (beyond the limited range of the known) the only test that
can fairly be applied to it is how far it takes account both of the
immense variety and complexity of man's emotional potentialities
and at the same time of his need for organic wholeness.
