Some of Von Neumann’s scientific admirers have seen in him the “new man,” the ideal type of future person, implied by his name. The burden of the vision as well as the historical evidence informing this book is that the direction of human development most valuable to the species in the late twentieth century is likely to be very different from that of the ideal scientific man. Von Neumann can with considerable justification be regarded as a superb and highly developed representative of a nineteenth-century vision of modern man, but if indeed a shift in the direction of civilization is occurring, it is inappropriate to view him as representative of what man should become in the future. The virtues and virtuosities of the ideal scientific man are particularly conducive to productive scientific work, but as a generalized ideal of conduct—and they have become that in a Western civilization—they are in conflict with a wider, more comprehensive humanness.