ss, so awful, that I can hardly
write of it.... The whole and the worst, the worst pessimist can
say is far beneath the least particle of the truth.... Anyone who
will consider the affairs of the world at large ... will see that
they do not proceed in the manner they would do for our happiness
if a man of humane breadth of view were placed at their head with
unlimited power. A man of intellect and humanity could cause
everything to happen in an infinitely superior manner. But that
which is ... credited to a non-existent intelligence (or cosmic
"order," it is just the same) should really be claimed and
exercised by the human race. We must do for ourselves what
superstition has hitherto supposed an intelligence to do for
us.--Richard Jeffries.

Would but some winged Angel ere too late
Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,
And make the stern Recorder otherwise
Enregister, or quite obliterate!

Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
Remold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

--Omar.

You frequently intimate that my doctrine concerning the origin and
destiny of the universe with all that therein is, including man, is not
that of the majority of men of science and scientific philosophers, but
that yours is. It will therefore be of interest to you to know that I
have submitted the most radical of my materialistic pieces to three men
of science, all great authorities, one of whom replied, that he was in
substantial agreement with me, but thought me to be 400 years ahead of
our time; another, that he found nothing to criticize unless it might be
my failure to give greater prominence to the fact that the gods of the
redemptive interpretations, of religion were so many versions of the
sun-myth, and the other, that the essay would pass any world congress of
scientists by a large majority.

You think that I am wrong in quoting Newton and Darwin on my side,
because they believed in the existence of a conscious, personal god. I
am persuaded that such was not the case with Darwin at his death; but,
however this may be, it is in neither of these cases, nor in that of any
other scientist, a question of what he philosophically believed
concerning a god, but of what he scientifically established as a fact.

Newton established the fact that the movements of the stars