Man is a two-thing animal, they said; part beast, part deity. He wants to kill. He wants to know. He should suppress the first and encourage the second. One day we’ll learn to take the beast out entirely and pop it in a little bell jar. There’ll be no violence then. There’ll be no strife. That is the paradise the myths have been pointing to and we’ll make it with knowledge, not magic. We’ll tame nature and tame our own nature. We’ll sell the universe back to ourselves at a reduced cost.
