In the third chapter of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the author, Edward Gibbon, stated, "History is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind." Moreover, lines in the poem, Know Then Thyself, written some fifty years before Gibbon"s essays, expressed Alexander Pope"s perplexity about Mankind: Created half to rise, and half to fall: Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl"d; The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Why? Why is Gibbon"s denunciation and Pope"s perplexity justifiably directed at a species capable of producing the wonders of Stonehenge; the Pyramids; the great cities of the Tigris-Euphrates; the Great Wall of China; the glories of Ancient Greece and Rome; of the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal; the artistry of the Sistine Chapel; invent the miracle of flight and the marvel of radio and television; and land a craft with its crew on the moon and bring them back again....