The possibility of this is involved in the
pragmatistic willingness to treat pluralism as a serious hypothesis.
In the end it is our faith and not our logic that decides such
questions, and I deny the right of any pretended logic to veto my
own faith. I find myself willing to take the universe to be really
dangerous and adventurous, without therefore backing out and crying
'no play.' I am willing to think that the prodigal-son attitude,
open to us as it is in many vicissitudes, is not the right and final
attitude towards the whole of life. I am willing that there should
be real losses and real losers, and no total preservation of all
that is. I can believe in the ideal as an ultimate, not as an
origin, and as an extract, not the whole. When the cup is poured
off, the dregs are left behind forever, but the possibility of what
is poured off is sweet enough to accept.
As a matter of fact countless human imaginations live in this
moralistic and epic kind of a universe, and find its disseminated
and strung-along successes sufficient for their rational needs.
There is a finely translated epigram in the greek anthology which
admirably expresses this state of mind, this acceptance of loss as
unatoned for, even tho the lost element might be one's self:
"A shipwrecked sailor, buried on this coast, Bids you set sail.
Pages:
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243