MAN ON THE MOON
247
Once the sole property -of the moonlit -garden, or -the. lamplit
garret, romantic agony
is
now the prerogative of the laboratory and
th.e men in white. They make gas, they make bombs, they make machines
to do our thinking for us, and if one asks them
why
they do it, they
have one reply-they
must.
It is a question of the impartial pursuit ·of
truth. The scientist's principles demand that he pursues it even if it
leads to annihilation. But that is something of an understatement. It is
better to say that the devotee pursues it
knowing
that it leads to an–
nihilation. The truth if it kills you: if it kills you it must be the truth.
True romantic agony could hardly be better practiced, or more accurately_
defined.
A small question does arise.
Is
a man in space-a
man?
If
gravity
does not hold him,
if
ties do not bind him,
if
the sun does not warm
him and the moon does not thrill him-is he a man? Is not this what
all of the
experiments
are about? Not merely if he wiII stay alive-hut
alive as a
man?
Marvel of marvels, outwondering wonder, and perhaps outlasting
horror, is the singular fact that man, of all creatures, is of the 'earth
the most earthy. The eagle and the mole, the fish and the termite meet
in
him.
In his blood a solution of salt stilI links him with the sea. His
most ethereal flights are earth-centered and -earth inspired. His notions
of space, of Time, of God-matters he considers the most unearthly–
are but seeds of his earthbound mind, blown by the wind. "I remembet–
well the time," Darwin wrote, "when the thought of the eye made
me cold allover."
-
In this scientist the poet was not dead. The thought of the eye–
that miraculous lens where both the sun and the moon trace their
orbits-is still the mirror, and the measure, of man's universe. Eternity
still lies in Blake's grain of sand. That being so, is there any reason Man
should not rocket in space
if
he wants to? Or live, or die, on- the
moon-if he thinks he must?
One of the freedoms in which I believe is that of mati to m.ike
an ass of himself. Happily, many stilI do. The problem does not lie
m
his practice so much as his conviction: his belief that he is in possession
of the truth.
Whether man can build an island in space, or live on the moon,
is not a proposition I want to question. Man is very clever. Some· day
I'm sure he will. The question I have in mind is related to those spirits
said to inhabit old English manor houses, frightening the guests with
thumps on the floor, flickering lights at the top -of the stairs, and making
