An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (Ishmael 1) - Page 20

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“As we saw yesterday, creation wasn’t complete when jellyfish appeared or when amphibians appeared or when reptiles appeared or even when mammals appeared. According to your mythology, it was complete only when man appeared.”

“Right.”

“Why was the world and the universe incomplete without man? Why did the world and the universe need man?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, think about it. Think about the world without man. Imagine the world without man.”

“Okay,” I said, and closed my eyes. A couple minutes later I told him I was imagining the world without man.

“What’s it like?”

“I don’t know. It’s just the world.”

“Where are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where are you looking at it from?”

“Oh. From above. From outer space.”

“What are you doing up there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why aren’t you down on the surface?”

“I don’t know. Without man on it … I’m just a visitor, an alien.”

“Well, go on down to the surface.”

“Okay,” I said, but after a minute I went on to say, “That’s interesting. I’d rather not go down there.”

“Why? What’s down there?”

I laughed. “The jungle is down there.”

“I see. You mean, ‘Nature, red in tooth and claw … Dragons of the prime that tare each other in their slime.’”

“That’s it.”

“And what would happen if you did go down there?”

“I’d be one of the ones the dragons were tearing in their slime.”

I opened my eyes in time to see Ishmael nodding. “And it is at this point that we begin to see where man fits into the divine scheme. The gods didn’t mean to leave the world a jungle, did they?”

“You mean in our mythology? Certainly not.”

“So: Without man, the world was unfinished, was just nature, red in tooth and claw. It was in chaos, in a state of primeval anarchy.”

“That’s right. That’s it exactly.”

“So it needed what?”

Tags: Daniel Quinn Ishmael Classics
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