“Man, so far as natural science by itself is able to teach
us, is no longer the final cause of the universe, the Heaven-descended heir of
all the ages. His very existence is an accident, his story a brief and
transitory episode in the life of one of the meanest of planets. Of the
combination of causes that first converted a dead organic compound into the
living progenitors of humanity, science, indeed, as yet knows nothing. It is
enough that from such beginnings famine, disease, and mutual slaughter, fit nurses
for the future lords of creation, have gradually evolved, after infinite
travail, a race conscious enough to know that it is insignificant. We survey
the past, and see that its history is of blood and tears, of helpless
blundering, of wild revolt, of stupid acquiescence, of empty aspirations. We
sound the future, and learn that after a period, long compared with the
individual life, but short indeed compared with the divisions of time open to
our investigation, the energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun
will be dimmed, and the Earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the
race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the
pit, and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this
obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the
universe, will be at rest. Matter will know itself no longer. ‘Imperishable
monuments’ and ‘immortal deeds’, death itself, and love stronger than death,
will be as though they had never been.”
Arthur Balfour 1848 – 1930.
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