“Yes,” I answered, “unlikeness gives us recognition.”
Virginia said: “If we were all one self, life would be uninteresting.”
“Yes,” said I, “but we might reach a self-conscious self which is unthinkable to us now. There is one way, however, in which evolution helps us, and that is such an obvious way that none of you has thought of it.”
For a moment they were puzzled. Then Alfred said: “It is that we are really all one self.”
“Oh, I see,” said Marian.
“Yes,” I answered, “it is that we are all physically related with all life.”
Then I went on to say that no one knew how life began, that there were theories, but they might be no better than fairy tales. They wanted to hear some. I said:
“One theory is that life is eternal in the shape of life-germs, or organic matter, and that these pass from planet to planet throughout the ether forever. But it is only a theory, and a doubtful one.”
“I like that theory,” said Virginia.
I said I thought beginnings concerned us no more than ends, that all things, histories, science, knowledge, theories concerned us only in so far as they helped us to understand, as they served the large aim of life and showed us how to go. I made Henry repeat again that the aim of life was complete understanding. I said: “To me it is like a measure by which I measure and value all things.” We tried to measure various things by it, such as the relative advancement of monkeys, birds and ants, and the greatness of Napoleon and Shakespeare. We came to few conclusions, except that the love of man made man lovable, and that Shakespeare must have been a lover of men.