The book is a kind of result of the creative searches of Academician Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, the result of his deep reflections on the fate of scientific knowledge, the relationship between science and philosophy, the future of mankind. In detail tracing the ways and stages of the development of scientific thought in different historical epochs, the author emphasizes the unevenness of this development. Analyzing idealistic philosophical systems not only European, but also the Ancient East, he puts them on a par with religion, contrasting them with scientific knowledge. Revealing the leading transformative role of science and socially organized human labor in the present and future of our planet, emphasizing the increasing independence of the power of mind over the biosphere, the scientist warns that as the noosphere develops this independence can be realized only if the equilibrium forces that exist in the biosphere are maintained.
