Morality 



learnt to keep up your courage for a few 

 days longer and glean a little farther all a- 

 round your home? ... If evolution which, 

 as they say, has instructed you in your diffi- 

 cult trade, has nevertheless allowed you to 

 remain in ignorance of these highly impor- 

 tant details, which are easy to carry out after 

 a short apprenticeship, the reason is because 

 it has taught you nothing at all, whether 

 housekeeping, burrowing or baking. Your 

 evolution is a permanent affair. You move 

 about within a circle with a fixed radius; you 

 are and always will be what you were when 

 the first pellet was lowered into the cellar." 



All this explains nothing. True; but to 

 know how not to know at least gives a stable 

 equilibrium and repose to our restless curios- 

 ity. We are very near the precipice of the 

 unknowable. That precipice should be en- 

 graved with what Dante inscribes on the gate 

 of his Inferno: 



^^Lasciate ogni speranza.^^ 



Yes, let all of us who, when we take the 

 atom by assault, imagine that we are storm- 

 ing the universe: let us abandon all hope 

 here. The sanctuary of origin will not be 

 opened for us. In vain do we seek to fathom 

 the riddle of life: we shall never attain 

 163 



