Lesson 45 Of men and galaxiesFirst listen and then answer the following question.What is the most influential factor in any human society?In man's early days, competition with other creatures must have been critical.But this phase of our development is now finished.Indeed, we lack practice and experience nowadays in dealing with primitive conditions.I am sure that, without modern weapons, I would make a very poor show of disputing the ownership of a cave with a bear, and in this I do not think that I stand alone.The last creature to compete with man was the mosquito.But even the mosquito has been subdued by attention to drainage and by chemical sprays.Competition between ourselves, person against person, community against community, still persists, however; and it is as fierce as it ever was.But the competition of man against man is not the simple process envisioned in biology.It is not a simple competition for a fixed amount of food determined by the physical environment,because the environment that determines our evolution is no longer essentially physical.Our environment is chiefly conditioned by the things we believe.
