“I do not. I know nothing about it. I am quite content to live in a world that is slowly and steadily developing in benignity, and to assist that development in my small way by trying to develop the benignity in myself.
“I do not trouble about my soul one iota, but I am deeply concerned to keep on that upward path along which earth is ascending.”
The Imitation of Earth
“Ah, but how can one do that?”
“By copying what the earth has done; by freeing oneself as much as possible from ferocity, hatred, lust, and cruelty.”
“But you are neither ferocious nor cruel?”
“Perhaps not actively, but just as I carry in my material brain the eye of the extinct monster I once was, so do I carry in my mind the remnants of the passions of the reptile that once was me, the lust of the reptile and the hatred. I do not tear other human beings with my teeth, but I have torn them by deeds and words. I have been cruel—who has not? lustful—who has not? inspired by hatred—who has not? I have regretted these things—who has not?—and forgotten them—who has not?”
“But since I have taken a broad view of the world, since I have seen that all these things are part and parcel of the malignity from which earth is freeing herself in her journey toward the Benign, I have come to hate those things as a man on the road to some brilliant festival might hate the obstacles on his path.”
“But since you have no surety that you possess an individual soul, you have no surety of ever reaching the festival.”
“I cannot help that. My immediate aim is to keep up with the procession. I leave the rest to chance.”