Excerpt from The Hypothesis of the Universality of Life
Nevertheless, after man opened his eyes, it behooved him to use them to the best possible advantage. He evidently did not do this in many cases, but kept on in the old way, hanging doggedly to a flimsy raft, refusing to. board the life boat which continually floated near him.
At this late date, I ask a momentous question: have we not, times without number, mistaken the direction of an action? I see ahead the rocks of incredulity and know them all too well. They loom so large in questions of a certain kind they often deter the most stout-hearted, but a decision must be made at some time. Why not now? Surmise strengthened by interpretations of available facts must always keep far ahead of actual proof.
Man's origin has been to me, ever since I can remember, a question of intense interest. I might say that as I grew up, it became one of anxiety. This was because I felt it an easier thing to solve than the still greater riddle of his destination, yet the solution of the one ought to throw great light upon the solution of the other. I have been like the child, afraid of the storm, who puts on a bold front, but now that the commotion in my mind has somewhat subsided, I willingly confess the previous condition of agitation.
The direction of an action is a fundamental factor in almost any problem. The answer to the question of that direction, in this particular case, is the burden of this argument. I can well conceive that for ages man thought, if it interested him in the least, that he really saw things, in the sense that the eye is not a receptive organ.
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