Paley's argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of his day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong
|
A young and vital child knows no limit to his own will, and it is the only reality to him. It is not that he wants at the outset to fight other wills, but that they simply do not exist for him. Like the artist, he goes forth to the work of creation, gloriously alone.
|
We cheerfully assume that in some mystic way love conquers all, that good outweighs evil in the just balances of the universe and at the 11th hour something gloriously triumphant will prevent the worst before it happens.
|
If a man has talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded and has a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.
|
Life is not worth living unless you have a choice of all the gloriously unhygienic things that mankind - especially the French portion of it - has lovingly created.
|