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Stapledon was a celebrated British science fiction writer whose book titles hint at his remarkably vast vision of time and space: Star Maker, Last and First Men, To the End of Time, Death Into Life. But while he used science and technology to provide a vision of the far and faraway future of humanity, he also was very aware of the their limitations. That is, while he acknowledged that science and tech could and would provide for us tools of unimaginable capabilities, he also knew they provided no direction—none—for the use of those tools.

Science tells us how to increase our power by making tools. Wisdom is knowing what to use those tools for, and the former is not the latter. Stapledon’s remark is another way of saying that learning how to make a living is one thing, learning how to live is another. The former, of course, is essential, but our culture ignores and distorts the latter, and one way or the other we will pay. Perhaps we presently are. Perhaps we have been since the misnamed Enlightenment. Perhaps since the dawn of civilization. Perhaps the final payment is closer than we think.