But in neither case does evolution tell you how to treat
a tiger reasonably, that is, to admire his stripes while avoiding
his claws.
If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must go back to
the garden of Eden. For the obstinate reminder continued to recur:
only the supernatural has taken a sane view of Nature. The essence
of all pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really
in this proposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you
regard Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The
main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother:
Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have
the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire,
but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure
in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity.
Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele.
Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson.
But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert.
Pages:
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222