Till now man has been up against Nature; from now on he will be up against his own nature.

Gabor contrasts two eras of human struggle. For most of history, survival and progress meant contending with external constraints—climate, disease, scarcity, and other forces of “Nature.” In the modern technological age, he suggests, the decisive challenges become internal: the limits of human psychology, ethics, and social organization. As scientific power grows (from industrialization to nuclear weapons and biotechnology), humanity’s capacity to harm itself also grows, making self-restraint, foresight, and moral maturity as important as ingenuity. The quote frames modernity as a turning point where the main battlefield is no longer the environment but human impulses, institutions, and choices.