At some point in this vast assemblage, actually before the assemblage
came into existence, there were responsible, animating forces in play.
There was also the responsibility for the use or exercise of the
operating forces. We humans are a product of those forces. We also share
in their functioning. Consequently we share in the responsibility which
is associated with their exercise.
It is the task of philosophy to designate the responsibility; to
describe it, measure it and perhaps to assign it. At any rate, we find
ourselves in a position where certain things are expected of us, perhaps
even required of us as members of the human family and/or of the human
family as a functioning whole.
It is entirely possible that, instead of overlooking, ignoring,
bickering, quarreling and periodically maiming and killing each other
wholesale, we humans should be devoting our energies, emotions, thoughts
and plans to furthering the larger purpose of which the earth and its
inhabitants are small segments. In a word, that we humans should be
acting as a responsible part of a functioning whole engaged in the vast
enterprise of being and becoming.
Whatever our ultimate tasks may be, our immediate problem is three-fold:
(1) To make the earth the fittest possible living place for all of its
inhabitants; (2) to organize human society in the way best calculated to
achieve that objective; and (3) to make every reasonable effort to
prepare ourselves to play a meaningful part in this cosmic drama to
which we have been assigned.
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