ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



insects, the one overarching purpose seems to be to 

 give free rein to life, to play one form against an- 

 other, to build up and tear down, to gather to- 

 gether and to scatter — no rest, no end, nothing 

 final — rocks decaying to build more rocks, worlds 

 destroyed to build more worlds, nations disintegrat- 

 ing to build more nations, organisms perishing to 

 feed more organisms, life playing into the hands of 

 death everywhere, and death playing into the hands 

 of life, sea and laud interchanging, tropic and arctic 

 meeting and mingling, day and night, winter and 

 summer chasing each other over the earth — what 

 a spectacle of change, what a drama never com- 

 pleted! Vast worlds and systems in fiery flux; one 

 little corner of the cosmos teeming with life, vast 

 areas of it, like Saturn and Jupiter, dead and barren 

 through untold millions of years; collisions and dis- 

 ruptions in the heavens, tornadoes and earthquakes 

 and wars and pestilence upon the earth — surely 

 it all sounds worse than it is, for we are all here to 

 see and contemplate the great spectacle; it sounds 

 worse than it is to us because we are a part of the 

 outcome of all these raging and conflicting forces. 

 Whatever has failed, we have succeeded, and the 

 beneficent forces are still coming our way. As I 

 write these lines I see my neighbor and his boys 

 gathering the hay from the meadows and building 

 it into a great stack beside their glutted barns. I 

 see a chipmunk carrying stores to his den, I see 



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