Man's chief purpose is the creation and preservation of values: that is what gives meaning to our civilization, and the participation in this is what gives significance ultimately, to the individual human life. Only in so far as values are fostered—through art and religion and science and love and domestic life—men can effectively use the machines and powers that have enabled them to tame nature and secure human existence from the worst outrages and accidents that forever threaten it. Civilization, our very capacity to be human, rests on that perpetual effort. If any nation or group thinks that the job is finished, or if man puts his confidence solely in the instruments and forgets the ends and ideals and metaphysical purposes-then the structure crumbles away: then man himself is finished.

Man's chief purpose is the creation and preservation of values: that is what gives meaning to our civilization, and the participation in this is what gives significance ultimately, to the individual human life. Only in so far as values are fostered—through art and religion and science and love and domestic life—men can effectively use the machines and powers that have enabled them to tame nature and secure human existence from the worst outrages and accidents that forever threaten it. Civilization, our very capacity to be human, rests on that perpetual effort. If any nation or group thinks that the job is finished, or if man puts his confidence solely in the instruments and forgets the ends and ideals and metaphysical purposes-then the structure crumbles away: then man himself is finished.