Man in the Universe: Permanence Amidst Apparent Change

[Introduction]

THERE is no domain in which change and transformation reign with the same supremacy and totality as in that which concerns nature and man's relation to it as well as his knowledge of it. Modern science, which has acted as a catalyst during the past centuries for change in so many other fields, is itself based upon change and impermanence. Were it to become stationary and immutable it would cease to exist in its present form. And since this is the only science of nature known to modern man, the whole relation between man and nature, as well as the nature of man himself and the Universe that surrounds him, is seen only in the light of flux and change. The view that man's position in the Universe and his knowledge of it, not to speak of the object of this knowledge, is constantly changing has come to appear as so obvious and evident as to make any other point of view seem absurd and well-nigh impossible to understand. Modern man is bewildered at even the possibility of an element of permanence in his relation with the Universe, not because such an element does not exist, but because the problem itself is never considered from the point of view of permanence.