THE MAKING OF MEANING ■ 239that will marshal our psychic energy toward meaningful goals, a system
that provides rules for a way of life that can provide flow.
It is difficult to imagine that a system of beliefs such as this will
not be based, at least to some degree, on what science has revealed about
humanity and about the universe. Without such a foundation, our
consciousness would remain split between faith and knowledge. But if
science is to be of real help, it will have to transform itself. In addition
to the various specialized disciplines aimed at describing and controlling
isolated aspects of reality, it will have to develop an integrated interpre
tation of all that is known, and relate it to humankind and its destiny.
One way to accomplish this is through the concept of evolution.
Everything that matters most to us—such questions as: Where did we
come from? Where are we going? What powers shape our lives? What
is good and bad? How are we related to one another, and to the rest of
the universe? What are the consequences of our actions?—could be
discussed in a systematic way in terms of what we now know about
evolution and even more in terms of what we are going to know about
it in the future.
The obvious critique of this scenario is that science in general, and
the science of evolution in particular, deals with what is, not with what
ought to be. Faiths and beliefs, on the other hand, are not limited by
actuality; they deal with what is right, what is desirable. But one of the
consequences of an evolutionary faith might be precisely a closer integra
tion between the is and the ought. When we understand better why we
are as we are, when we appreciate more fully the origins of instinctual
drives, social controls, cultural expressions—all the elements that con
tribute to the formation of consciousness—it will become easier to direct
our energies where they ought to go.
And the evolutionary perspective also points to a goal worthy of
our energies. There seems to be no question about the fact that over the
billions of years of activity on the earth, more and more complex life
forms have made their appearance, culminating in the intricacies of the
human nervous system. In turn, the cerebral cortex has evolved con
sciousness, which now envelops the earth as thoroughly as the atmo
sphere does. The reality of complexification is both an is and an ought:
it has happened—given the conditions ruling the earth, it was bound
to happen—but it might not continue unless we wish it to go on. The
future of evolution is now in our hands.
In the past few thousand years—a mere split second in evolution
ary time—humanity has achieved incredible advances in the differentia
tion of consciousness. We have developed a realization that mankind is