ABSTRACT
It is extremely difficult to realize at this distance how the discovery of the American continent fired the imagination of the Old World and kindled men’s hopes to the point of frenzy. But this is what great discoveries of any kind have always done. The invention of the printing press, at about the same time, excited a wave of enthusiasm which surely must have served the Reformation. If the Protestants gave such great importance to the Bible as the sole vessel of God’s Word— excluding the Catholic concept of tradition and authority— one reason for that emphasis was the fact that printing, for the first time, made the Bible available to everyone. In the nineteenth century, developments in biological research gave rise in certain quarters to the hope, only now beginning to cool down, that man would one day discover how to create life and conquer death. In the early part of this century, Freud’s discovery set in motion another wave of enthusiasm. And now, today, the release of the atom, first manifested in the terror of ruined cities, has launched still another hope— the hope of man’s limitless mastery over matter. Thus humanity, as in classic tragedy, caroms onward, from hope to terror, from terror to hope.
