If we note attentively the aberrations of the ruling classes throughout history, we shall see how far most of them were from understanding the limita… - Lewis Mumford

Apart from murder and rape, the most horrendous crimes punished by civilized authority stem back to the 'unpardonable sin'of kingship: disobedience to the sovereign. Murderous coercion was the royal formula for establishing authority, securing obedience, and collecting booty, tribute, and taxes. At bottom, every royal reign was a reign of terror. With the extension of kingship, this underlying terror formed an integral part of the new technology and the new economy of abundance. In short, the hidden face of that beautiful dream was a nightmare, which civilization has so far not been able to throw off.

Galileo's mechanical world was only a partial representation of a finite number of probable worlds, each peculiar to a particular living species; and all these worlds are but a portion of the infinite number of possible worlds that may have once existed or may yet exist. But anything like a single world, common to all species, at all times, under all circumstances, is a purely hypothetical construction, drawn by inference from pathetically insufficient data, prized for the assurance of stability and intelligibility it gives, even though that assurance turns out, under severe examination, to be just another illusion. A butterfly or a beetle, a fish or a fowl, a dog or a dolphin, would have a different report to give even about primary qualities, for each lives in a world conditioned by the needs and environmental opportunities open to his species. In the gray visual world of the dog, smells, near and distant, subtle or violently exciting, probably play the part that colors do in man's world-though in the primal occupation of eating, the dog's world and man's world would approach each other more closely.

In surrendering unconditionally to the power system, with its 'automation of automation,' modern man has forfeited some of the inner resources necessary to keep him alive: above all, animal faith in his own capacity to survive and to reproduce his kind, biologically, historically, and culturally. In the act of dismissing the past he has undermined his faith in the future; for it is only by their convergence in his present consciousness that he can preserve continuity through change and embrace change without forfeiting continuity. This and nothing less is the 'way of life.