Our way of thinking, so used to interpreting historical events in the context
of man’s unchangeable nature, easily misleads us into overlooking the
enormous turning-point in the history of mankind represented by the last
hundred years. In earlier periods the need for energy was satisfied by men’s
physical labour and by the use of wind and sun, which are older than ourselves
and will outlive our life conditions. The past century has opened the
floodgates for the energy stored in coal, and has introduced ways of life in
industrialized countries in which the physical labour of men merely operates
a relay to release the hundred times more powerful energy of coal into the
lifestream of international commerce. Technical needs have arisen for which
we only too easily find ourselves unprepared through a lack of adequate
scientific development. The present state of affairs in the world, with the
after-effects of the War in Central Europe placing an overwhelming load on
our scientific work, makes this only too plain.