World's End A Story Author:Richard Jefferies Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. || HEN even the most strictly logical mind looks round and investigates the phenomena attending its own existence, perhaps the first i'act t... more »o attract attention by its strongly marked prominence, is the remarkable loneliness of man. He stands alone. He may have brethren, but they are far below, and like Joseph's seen in the dream, must bow the knee to his state. There extends, as it were, behind him a vast army of bird, beast, reptile, fish, and insect, thronging the broad earth in countless myriads, whose ancestry goes back into periods of time which cannot be expressed by notation. And every one of these, from the tiniest insect to the majestic elephant, is man's intellectualinferior; so that lie stands alone on a pedestal on the apex of a huge pyramid of animal life. He looks back—there are millions of inferior creatures. He looks forward—where is his superior ? His mind easily grasps the idea of a superior, but where is it ? He cannot see, feel, touch, or in any way indisputably prove the existence of a superior being, or race of beings. Yet the mind within is so wonderful and so f complex, that it will not accept the con- / elusion that he really stands alone ; that he ' is the completion and the keystone of / creation. A little thought convinces him of , his own shortcomings, tells him how far he . / is from perfection, and the analogy of all . things teaches him almost instinctively to t -. look above into the Unknown for a superior being, or a race of beings. It is contrary to all reason and logic, to all analogy and all imagination, that there should be so many myriads behind, and nothing in front. There must be beings in front of him in thescale of existence, just as he is in front of the heings in...« less
ISBN-13: 9780952281344 ISBN-10: 0952281341 Publication Date: 10/1/2008 Pages:420 Edition:New edition of an 18 Rating: