To know the future, however, is no more desirable in the life of mankind than in the life of the individual. And our astrological impatience for such knowledge is sheer folly. Whether we imagine a man, for instance, knowing in advance the day of his death and the situation it would find him in, or a people knowing in advance the century of its downfall, both pictures would bear within themselves the inevitable consequence-a confusion of all desire and endeavour. For desire and endeavour can only unfold freely when they live and act ''blindly," i.e. for their own sakes and in obedience to inward impulses. After all, the future is shaped only when that happens, and if it did not happen, the future life and end of that man or that people would be different.
A future known in advance is an absurdity.
Foreknowledge of the future, however, is not only undesirable, it is probably beyond our power as well. The main obstacle in the way is the confusion of insight by our wishes, hopes and fears; further, our ignorance of everything which we call latent forces, physical or mental, and the incalculable factor of mental contagions, which can suddenly transform the world. Nor must we forget the acoustic illusion in which we live. For four centuries past, thought and argument; multiplied to ubiquity by the press, have drowned every voice but their own, and seem to hold even material forces in dependence on themselves. And yet it may be that those very forces are on the eve of a triumphant expansion of another kind, or that a spiritual current is at the door ready to carry the world in the opposite direction. If that current wins the day, it will take thought and its trumpets into its service until another comes to take its place. And finally, as regards the future, we must not forget the limitations of our knowledge of racial biology from the physiological side.
Quote from the book Reflections on history
No comments:
Post a Comment