Screeds
Sunday, September 26, 2004
An Unappreciated Marvel
November 20, 2001
Thanksgiving, which a friend calls the Feast of St. Gluttony, is upon us once more. Though the holiday is nominally Thursday only, the overindulgences usually continue informally throughout the weekend, roughly until the end of the late NFL game on Sunday night. And yes, there’s a little giving of thanks in there, too, albeit often misdirected.
Thankful for our prosperity? Well, yes. Ayn Rand once wrote that Thanksgiving was a holiday established by productive people to celebrate the success of their labors. But this is a thanks given to oneself—appropriately—for having been an industrious worker of usually moderate appetite.
Thankful for our freedom? Thankful to whom? Freedom is the right to be left alone in the peaceful use and enjoyment of that which is ours. Ought we to be thankful for something that’s ours by right—that requires nothing of others except that they not impose their wills upon us by force? Some would say yes, noting how rare such a condition is in human history. I’m of another mind. I think the contrary condition should inspire rage and open revolt, wherever it exists.
Thankful for the love of our families and friends? I suppose so. Love is a thing given, to be sure. But love is also a thing earned. We earn it by being industrious, decent, thoughtful, magnanimous, tolerant, self-reliant, loyal, and (when the occasion demands it) brave. Those who love us do so because they find in us those qualities that they most value, and that they would like to find in themselves.
I’ve pondered all these objects of gratitude for many a year. Though I don’t dismiss them, I think there’s a larger matter to be addressed, an unappreciated wonder upon which all the abovementioned good things, and all others of any kind, must stand.
I give thanks for natural law.
There’s so much semantic noise in the air about law these days that we tend not to take account of all the uses of the word. The laws debated, passed and repealed by legislatures are many and much discussed. They writhe and tangle, blend and fade, rise and fall as the winds of politics and public opinion blow upon them.
But there are other laws, laws no legislature can affect. From the dawn of history to the end of time, they have been and will be what they are. These blessed constants, emissions of the one true Lawgiver, are the rock upon which all of existence is founded.
Those constant laws, which need no enforcement by any human agency, decree that men will enjoy peace and prosperity when they allow one another to be free, and will suffer war and squalor when they oppress one another, or allow one another to be oppressed.
Those laws, which operate without supervision to keep the stars and planets in their courses, decree that our cars will start and take us to the jobs we wish we could retire from, that our aircraft will fly and shuttle politicians and corporate executives back and forth between crucial rounds of golf, that electricity will flow into our homes so that Junior can spend his every waking moment on the Internet and our radios and televisions can fill our heads with mindless drivel.
Those laws, which set the conditions for life of every kind, decree that there will be bacteria and viruses whose kiss is lethal to us, but also that we can formulate antibiotics and vaccines to subdue them. They decree that our vision and hearing will deteriorate as we age, but also that we can make glasses and hearing aids to correct them. They decree that predators of many kinds will hunt the unwary and unprepared to their doom, but also that we can make weapons with which to protect ourselves and inflict the necessary retributions.
Those laws, in their constancy, are ultimately all we have.
The immutability of natural law is the precondition for every thought. Were the mechanisms that undergird the universe variable over space or time, Man would not be able to use cause-and-effect reasoning. Since all reasoning is cause-and-effect reasoning, without invariant natural law our brains would be useless lipid casseroles that serve no function but to operate our autonomic functions and cause neck strain.
A mixed blessing? Only if you think it’s possible to have pleasure without pain, gain without effort, life without death. Only if you think the fabric of life can be sliced so thin as to have only one side: all good things, without costs, hazards, or penalties.
Once upon a time it was put thus: The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
But you don’t have to be a deist of any kind to appreciate this marvelous and terrible gift. You merely have to note it and dwell upon it for a moment. That moment will grow. It will swell to encompass realms and eons beyond all your horizons. It will expand your mind as no chemical could ever do. It will leave you breathless. And thankful.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
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