Human Nature, When Man Clashes with Nature When men are compared with vast worlds that dwell in space, they seem significant like a leaf in a forest or a grain of sand by the seashore. He appears to be a contemptible little thing in comparison with the might and majesty of nature, but when we consider the high moral and spiritual stature that man can attain and when we look at man`s scientific achievements the glory of our modern intellectual life the greatness of man dawns upon us. He has measured the stars and harnessed the lighting.
He has distilled from plants and minerals invaluable medicines to fight disease and ward off death. When we think about what man has accomplished in the domain of science, and creative arts, we thank God that we possess a life, the possibilities of which are so great but even then an attitude of humility is highly desirable.
Human Nature and its Effects
Human Nature, is still going on with his subjugation of nature. We have not yet seen all things put under his feet. We see him during progress, carrying out the great purpose of his being. So vast and varied is the infinitude of nature that there are perhaps mysteries he will never fathom, problems he will never solve, and secrets he will never discover. At every step, we are conscious of our limitations in the face of overpowering nature. The forces of nature that he seeks control over overcome him in the end. Diseases dog his footsteps. Death laughs at his efforts to live.
The Holy Quran rightly says “The human beings encompass nothing of His knowledge save what he will”.
Let us begin with those enemies of human Nature that are microscopic but cause ravages on a very large scale. A few years ago Mosquitoes, flies, fleas, and related blood-sucking insects were considered by most people to be unworthy objects of serious study but it is now known that they are important factors in the spread of various diseases. In 1894, two Japanese doctors Yersin and Kitasto discovered the cause of plague to be a particular bacillus which is bred in the blood of rats suffering from the disease. From the rats, the parasites are transmitted to human beings by fleas and insects.
Human Nature, From three thousand years, ago pestilence took its toll on human life. Over a quarter of the population of Europe is believed to have been destroyed by bubonic plague in the 14th century. The chain that connects microbe and man has been revealed and by breaking this chain humanity has been delivered from a thraldom under which it has groaned from unknown ages.
Malarial fever is one of the most terrible tropical diseases and carries more than a million people every year in India alone. When sitting Ronald Ross was carrying out investigations in Banglore to determine the cause of Malaria, he wrote the following pleading lines:
“ In this, O nature; yield, I pray, to me
I pace and pace and think and think and take
The fevered hands and note down all I see
That some distant light may haply break.
The painful face asks, Can we not cure?
We answer, no, not yet, we seek the laws
O God, reveal through all this thing obscure
The unseen, small but million-murdering cause”
For four centuries the narrow Isthmus of Panama was regarded as a white man`s grave. Yellow fever prevented the Spanish the French or English from founding colonies there. When Ferdinand DE Lesseps, the constructor of the Suez Canal, commenced cutting the canal through the isthmus of Panama, the chief obstacle in his way was yellow fever. His men died like flies. Before the work was finally given by the French, human life had been sacrificed for every cubic yard of earth excavated.
Human Nature, The popular feeling regarding smallpox is voiced by a saying in Germany that from love and smallpox, none could escape. In this history of England, Macaulay refers to the death of Queen Mary daughter of James Second, and wife of William Three from the disease in 1694.
Jenner, Pasteur, and Lister have rendered inestimable services to humanity by liberating them from smallpox, rabies, and the festering of wounds. The conquest of disease is, undoubtedly, one of the brightest chapters in the story of human endeavor to master nature, but after all these marvelous attainments, there remains a vast area of knowledge to be annexed.
