"Civilisation is a term used to describe a superior level of accomplishments of certain nations...We humans are the cause of hazards to our existence created by overpopulation and environmental degradation. We are the designers of an economy that favours the well-to-do to the detriment of the disadvantaged. We are the contrivers of religious systems, some of which are responsible for crimes committed by humans against humans, and last but not least, we are the instigators of mass slaughters resulting from wars fought in anger...These acts bode ill for civilisation...Humanity nevertheless possesses the capacity to free itself from some of the burdens imposed by the natural order. We must discover that our welfare depends on the rejection of the natural order, so as to be freed from the struggle for the survival of the fittest, an order totally in conflict with morality...For the aims of morality are antithetical to nature's imposed scheme of things, reflecting the conflict between our aims and nature's designs..." - From the Introduction.
