A great deal is already gained with the first step: the humanization of nature. Impersonal forces and destinies cannot be approached… If everywhere in nature there are Beings around us of a kind that we know in our own society… we can apply the same methods against these violent supermen outside that we employ in our own society; we can try to adjure them, to appease them, to bribe them, and, by so influencing them, we may rob them of a part of their power.

— Sigmund Freud