| it to him, the emotion will likely be less simple, his sadness tinged with or dominated by anger. The added distress is not that if he stumbles he will fall, but that a human tripped him; not that if he fails to eat he will cease to live, but that someone destroyed his garden; not that a stream makes difficult his visit to a friend, but that her parents intervene, or that a prince forbids his travel. It is the level of human practice, what humans do to humans, singly and in groups. But the other fact remains, it underruns all we do. If a person sufficiently stumbles, he will fall; if he does cease to eat, for whatever reason, he will die. Streams do impede travel. And though princes and parents, for good and for bad, are often in the way, they are not necessarily so. They can also stand aside, or encourage rather than forbid. They both bless and damn. But the river can do only what it does; it cannot change itself. Whatever difficulties, conveniences, or delights we have with it are not its problems; good or bad, they are ours alone. |
| The second essay is given to determinism, the hope that all, in the full sense of this word, flows from the personal, conscious decisions of a perfect creator who transcends his universe, or the wish that all, again fully all, has been, is, and will be caused by the inherency of the self-existing universe, the relentless working of reckless, mindless matter. The topic suggests metaphysics; the writing does not. Of that which to me seems beyond knowledge, I presume to know as much as anyone does; but nothing is not worth writing of, it brings no content. Enough ignorance shows through even my best passages. A fantasy could be built, but that would be of little use save to the few who relish every opportunity for academic attack and |
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