For we deal with what certainly appear to be objective aspects of the
truth, when we regard ourselves in our relation to the might of the
physical universe. For even as men feed upon its beauty, so they have
found it necessary to discover something which should enable them to
live above and unafraid of its material and gigantic power. We have
already seen how there appears to be a cosmic hostility to human life
which sobers indeed those who are intelligent enough to perceive
it. It is only the fool or the brute or the sentimentalist who is
unterrified by nature. The man of reflection and imagination sees his
race crawling ant-like over its tiny speck of slowly cooling earth and
surrounded by titanic and ruthless forces which threaten at any moment
to engulf it. The religious man knows that he is infinitely greater
than the beasts of the field or the clods of the highway. Yet Vesuvius
belches forth its liquid fire and in one day of stark terror the great
city which was full of men is become mute and desolate. The proud
liner scrapes along the surface of the frozen berg and crumples like
a ship of cards. There is a splash, a cry, a white face, a lifted
arm, and then all the pride and splendor, all the hopes and fears, the
gorgeous dreams, the daring thoughts are gone. But the ice floats on
unscarred and undeterred and the ocean tosses and heaves just as it
did before.
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