The uni­verse is full of mat­ter and force. Yet in all that force, amongst all the bulks and grav­i­ties, the rains of cos­mic light, the bom­bard­ments of ener­gy — how lit­tle spir­it, how small the dec­i­mal points of intel­li­gence.

Dumb, some­times — yes. Awful, quite often. Dread­ful apish brutes on occa­sion fol­low­ing occa­sion. That’s how we things that rep­re­sent intel­li­gence seem to our­selves, and quote often truly are.

And yet I would not see our can­dle blown out in the wind. It is a small thing, this dear gift of life hand­ed us mys­te­ri­ous­ly out of immen­si­ty. I would not have that gift expire. Cross­ing the wilder­ness, cen­turies ago, men car­ried in cov­ered cows’ horns the coals of the pre­vi­ous nights’ fires to start new fires on the nights ahead. Thus we carry our­selves in the uni­ver­sal wilder­ness and blow upon the coals and kin­dle new lives and move on yet once more.