Page:Religion of a Sceptic (IA religionofscepti00powy).djvu/50

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THE RELIGION OF A SCEPTIC

able indifference, they may be pursuing objects as far beyond our objects as ours are beyond those of midges and flies.

Towards these forces, which have summoned us forth from the deep, we have, as men and women, a perfect right to be hostile, to be vindictive, to be blasphemous, to be cynical. To worship these forces with tender solicitude is ridiculous. To prostrate ourselves before them in panic-terror is humiliating and degrading. To seek to propitiate them, to seek to get them "on one's side," is natural enough; but whether it is likely to make any difference is another matter!

We owe them nothing. We did not ask to be born. They deserve no more from us than the rain deserves when it wets us or the sun deserves when it dries us.

If we do have to invent incantations "to get them on our side" we do not love them the better for that, or admire them the more! The account is equal between us. They to their ends. We to our ends.

The notion that there is any grandeur in "doing their will" is a psychological illusion. The grandeur, if there is any, consists in defiance to their will; but even that grows wearisome with time; since, after all, these forces are so subhuman or so superhuman that even to "defy" them is waste of energy.

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