Any complete philosophy of existence requires a care-
fully worked out theory of the universe, in technical terms
a cosmology, a metaphysics, an ontology or a world-view.
As we have already seen, Humanism believes that Nature
itself constitutes the sum total of reality, that matter and
not mind is the foundation-stuff of the universe, and that
supernatural entities simply do not exist. The non-reality
of the supernatural means, on the human level, that men
do not possess supernatural and immortal souls; and, on
the level of the universe as a whole, that our cosmos does
not possess a supernatural and eternal God.

Humanism's attitude toward the universe, like its judg-
ment as to the nature and destiny of man, is grounded
on solid scientific fact. The supernatural beliefs of Chris-
tianity were originally formulated in a pre-scientific era
in which it was thought that the earth, with the sun and
the multitudinous stars of the firmament revolving around
it, was the center of the cosmos. In a temporal sense the
earth and its forms of life were regarded as old as any-
thing else, since Nature in its entirety was supposedly
created by God only a few thousand years before the birth

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