‘That Have Helped Mankind’ is an important essay written by the famous scientist and thinker, Bertrand Russel. In this essay he describes the ideas and inventions that helped in human-development.
Long ago humans lived in forests and caves. They were afraid of wild animals. They had to move from place to place in search of food. Their number was small. Later they made use of their technique and skill to increase their numbers. But, in certain respects human beings are less developed in comparision to animals.
Russell says that humans and animals suffer from calamities. Humans remember the causes of their sufferings and want to get rid of it in future. On the other hand, animals forget them and can suffer from them again and again. But, this makes human less happy.
According to Russell, the ideas that helped mankind can be broadly divided into two categories. The first category of ideas is related to knowledge and technique. The second category of ideas is concerned with morals and politics. Language played a very important role in human development. The inventions of fire and agriculture were other mile-stones in man’s development. Use of fire was a great step that helped mankind. In the beginning man must have used fire to keep away wild animals. But, people began to use it to keep themselves warm. Later they began to use fire for cooking food. The invention of the art of writing also helped mankind.
Thus, there are several ideas that helped mankind. All these ideas made us developed. We can say that no development was possible without these ideas.