A Voyage to Laplacia [1955d]

Abstract

How did we ever, of all places, stumble upon that one? What unfathomable part in the predetermined concatenation of events which animate the scene of the universe did this trip fulfill? What may its necessary link have been with the tumultuous collisions of galaxies in the distant realms of space or discreet embraces of earthworms in the cold recesses of the soil? When faced with such anxious queries, the tragic poet’s familiar lines will naturally come to the readers mind:

Δɩòς ΐμερος ούκ εύθήρατος έτύχθη παντα τοɩ φλεγέθεɩ κάν σκότώ μελαίνα ξύν τύχα μερόπεσσι λαοίς.

(Aeschylos, Suppliant Maidens, 87–90).

Spirit of Nature! all-sufficing Power, Necessity! thou mother of the world!

Queen Mab, c VI.