Away from city lights, one look into a cloudless night-sky should make it clear that we are out of touch with reality, for thinking that whatever made the universe did it just for us or cares one fig about us. In the words of William James,
I believe that we stand in much the same relation to the whole of the universe as our canine and feline pets do to the whole of human life. They inhabit our drawing rooms and libraries. They take part in scenes of whose significance they have no inkling. They are merely tangent to curves of history the beginnings and ends and forms of which pass wholly beyond their ken. So we are tangents to the wide life of things.
(Quoted from page 72 of The Arrow That Flies by Day: Existential Images of the Human Condition from Socrates to Hannah Arendt, by Bernard Murchland. University Press of America, 2009.)
For a brief biography of William James, click here. For images of and relating to William James, click here. For Bernard Murchland’s website, click here.
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