So Being grows under all sorts of resistances in this world
of the many, and, from compromise to compromise, only gets organized
gradually into what may be called secondarily rational shape. We
approach the wishing-cap type of organization only in a few
departments of life. We want water and we turn a faucet. We want a
kodak-picture and we press a button. We want information and we
telephone. We want to travel and we buy a ticket. In these and
similar cases, we hardly need to do more than the wishing--the world
is rationally organized to do the rest.
But this talk of rationality is a parenthesis and a digression. What
we were discussing was the idea of a world growing not integrally
but piecemeal by the contributions of its several parts. Take the
hypothesis seriously and as a live one. Suppose that the world's
author put the case to you before creation, saying: "I am going to
make a world not certain to be saved, a world the perfection of
which shall be conditional merely, the condition being that each
several agent does its own 'level best.' I offer you the chance of
taking part in such a world. Its safety, you see, is unwarranted. It
is a real adventure, with real danger, yet it may win through.
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