Master Your Tensions and Enjoy Living Again.

Nor or Never: The Promise of the Middle Years. By Smiley Blanton, M.D. Price, $4.95. Pp. 273. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Route 9W, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1959. I have always regarded the cave, the fire, and the hunk of meat the rock bottom of human existence. Our technological obsession, our machines, and our economic philosophy have produced the highest general standard of living in the history of the world. Whether we like it or not, this is the age of know-how. Nevertheless, our culture may defeat us. If the cold war warms, the exploitation of science may kill us all. We may emphasize a standard of living as an end in itself. We may deceive ourselves that opulence alone can solve personal, technical, and political conundrums: insecurity and boredom; disease; rocketry; population expansion, and international envy. Materialism is reputed to favor a loss of ethical and cultural values, and this may make