Philanthropy

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Philanthropy is the effort or inclination to increase the well-being of humankind, as by charitable aid or donations. It is generally agreed that the word was coined 2500 years ago in ancient Greece, by the playwright Aeschylus, or whom ever else wrote Prometheus Bound. There the author told as a myth how the primitive creatures that were created to be human, at first had no knowledge, skills, or culture of any kind-so they lived in caves, in the dark, in constant fear for their lives. Zeus, the tyrannical king of the gods, decided to destroy them, but Prometheus, a Titan whose name meant "forethought," out of his "philanthropos tropos" or "humanity-loving character" gave them two empowering, life-enhancing, gifts: fire, symbolizing all knowledge, skills, technology, arts, and science; and "blind hope" or optimism. The two went together-with fire, humans could be optimistic; with optimism, they could use fire constructively, to improve the human condition.