essimists would disallow. That's why they repel us. Some
lessen our hope in the universe; others, in man.

Buffoon Fate

Suppose that a lot of us were living aboard a huge ship. Suppose the
ship didn't rock much, or require any urgent attention, but kept along
on an even keel and left us free to do as we liked. And suppose we got
into the habit of staying below more and more, never coming up on deck
or regarding the sea or the sky. Just played around below, working at
little jobs; eating, starving, quarreling, and arguing in the hold of
that ship.

And then, maybe, something would happen to call us on deck. Some peril,
some storm. And we'd suddenly realize that our life between decks wasn't
all. We'd run up and rub our eyes, and stare around at the black waters,
the vast, heaving waves; and a gale from far spaces would strike us, and
chill us like ice. And we'd think, "By Jove, we're on a ship! And where
is our ship sailing?"

Wars, plagues and famines are the storms that make us run up on deck.
They snatch us up, out of our buying and selling and studying, and show
us our whole human enterprise as a ship, in great danger.

We want to scurry back below, where it's lighted and smaller. Down below
where our toys are. On deck it's too vast, too tremendous....

We want to forget that the human race is on an adventure, sailing no one
knows where, on a magical, treacherous sea.

We have fought our way up from being wild, houseless lemurs, or lower,
and little by little we have built up our curious structure--of
learning, of art, of discovery--a wonderful structure: at least for us
monkey-men. It has been a long struggle. We can guess, looking backward,
what our ancestors had to contend with--how the cavemen fought mammoths,
and their tough sons and daughters fought barbarism. But we want to
forget it. We wish every one now to be genial. We pretend that this
isn't the same earth that our ancestors lived on, but quite a different
planet, where roughness is kept within bounds and where persons wear
gloves and have neat wooden doors they can lock.

But it's the very same earth that old Grandpa Caveman once wrestled
with, and where old Grandma Cavewoman ran for her life twice a week.

We've varnished the surface.

But it's still wild and strange just beneath.

In a book called "The War in the Air," by H. G. Wells (1907) he pictures
the world swimming along quietly, when bang! a war starts! And it
spreads, and