From the very beginning of his history, Western man has sought to defeat this most relentless of enemies - chaos. He has searched for words and gestures to tame the chaotic, arbitrary wills of his earliest Gods. He has created the image of an all powerful deity who not only brought order out of nothingness but is the essence of the law. He has chosen innumerable tyrannies, preferring the loss of his very soul to the sight of dogs running wild in his streets. He has examined the world around him, hoping to find inflexible laws. He has almost destroyed the original conditions of his planet - the very processes that make his life possible - in order to control every facet of his existence, often sacrificing his deepest instincts on the altar of his need for stability. And where he could neither find nor impose order, he has devised myths, dogmas, convoluted philosophical speculations, occult formulae and sterile scientific theories, murdering anyone who dared question these fancies - all to deny the terror he feels when faced with what he cannot understand.