In this inspiring best-seller, a famous scientist answers the spiritual questions concerning the nature of God, the soul, and the universe that perplex modern man.
At long intervals, sometimes hundreds of years apart, a scientific work appears which marks a new epoch in human thought. Such was the treatise in which Copernicus reformed astronomy; the Discourse on Method by Descartes; Newton on gravitation, Darwin on evolution or Einstein's theory of relativity. In years to come, Human Destiny, by Lecomte du Noüy, may prove to be such a book because of its startling theory of man's true place in the Universe and the meaning of his existence on this earth. This book could change the whole direction of scientific thought since the Renaissance. It can make history.Re-interpreting the theory of evolution in the light of modern physics, Human Destiny argues that the strictly materialistic theory of the Universe, and of man, is no longer ten¬able. Man, it says, is not on this earth by chance alone—and the author presents a series of convincing arguments to indicate that by the laws of pure chance man, and even life, could not be here at all. Dr. du Noüy contends that science finds a purpose evident in the history of life which rises above the laws of matter.The scope of the author's theory is tremendous. He brings enormous erudition and the most advanced scientific learning to the support of his thesis. According to this thesis man has now, to all intents and purposes, completed his biological evolution. He is just beginning his moral evolution.Human Destiny will impress every reader with its sincerity and profundity of grasp. Embracing many fields of science in its argument, it remains a brilliantly readable book. It deals with greatest drama of all time—the drama of creation—and it concludes on a note of hope.