The Substance Of My Being Has Been

It Was Not Necessarily The Best Of Times In America When Catholics And Protestants Were Suspicious Of And Hated One Another; But At Least They Were Taking Their Beliefs Seriously, And The More Or Less Satisfactory Accommodations They Worked Out Were Not Simply The Result Of Apathy About The State Of Their Souls.

This Nation's Impulse Is Toward The Future, And Tradition Seems More Of A Shackle To It Than An Inspiration.

Our Nation, A Great Stage For The Acting Out Of Great Thoughts, Presents The Classic Confrontation Between Locke's Views Of The State Of Nature And Rousseau's Criticism Of Them... Nature Is Raw Material, Worthless Without The Mixture Of Human Labor; Yet Nature Is Also The Highest And Most Sacred Thing. The Same People Who Struggle To Save The Snail-darter Bless The Pill, Worry About Hunting Deer And Defend Abortion. Reverence For Nature, Mastery Of Nature- Whichever Is Convenient.

The Expectation Of Substantive Unity Between Natural Science And Social Science Has Faded.... Gone Is The Cosmic Intention Of Placing Man In The Universe.

We Witness A Strange Inversion: On The One Hand, The Endeavor To Turn The Social Contract Into A Less Calculating And More Feeling Connection Among Its Members; On The Other Hand, The Endeavor To Turn The Erotic Relationship Into A Contractual One.