Books - Our society is one that looks to scientific development for personal dispensation, often only to suffer personal disaster.

The Invisible Man

 by H.G. Wells

by Sean Fitzpatrick

It is a terrible paradox that the pursuit dedicated to improving the human conditionbears the greatest potential to destroy humanity. That pursuit is scientific pursuit—ever progressing, ever evolving. Scientific evolution, however, should be simultaneous with engendering the responsibilities scientific knowledge requires. Unfortunately, technology develops far more quickly than temperance; likewise hubris ahead of humility. Man marches along with the uninhibited advance of his capacities without the innate impulses to govern their use. What hangs in the balance is man. Unchecked growth devoid of an attendant moral sense cannot truly help man. It can only harm him. “Because we can” must never be the answer to “Why?”—(a fearful question in this age of genetic creation and nuclear destruction). It behooves man to think through the ramifications of his powers lest he become Midas, whose apparent blessings became appalling banes.

The Invisible Man by Herbert George Wells delivers a singular enactment of this peril, making it a fable very much for modern times though written in 1897.

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