The Chaos Highly Organized

The human animal is not an imperfect embodiment of some higher order in things, existing apart from the world or slowly evolving within it. 'Man is the chaos highly organized, but liable to revert to chaos at any moment.' The world is not a harmony we dimly perceive. 'The eyes, the beauty of the world, have been organized out of the faeces. Man returns to dust. So does the face of the world to primeval cinders.' Moralists and logicians tell us their laws are not just human conventions - they describe something independent of human beings, something more absolute. For Hulme, however, 'The absolute is not to be described as perfect, but if existent as essentially imperfect, chaotic and cinder-like. (Even this view is not ultimate, but merely designed to satisfy temporary human analogies and wants.)' People talk of humans evolving, as if the views of the world humans take up and leave behind are developing towards one that will be all inclusive. But world-views are like gardens, easily destroyed by bad weather. 'The unity of Nature is an extremely artificial and fragile bridge, a garden net.' Human ideas are temporary clearances in the waste.

Gray, John. The Silence of Animals. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013, 133-34.