"Whenever you happen to take your children to the Zoo you may observe in the eyes of the apes, when they are not performing gymnastic feats or cracking nuts, a strange strained sadness.
One can almost imagine that they feel they ought to become men, but cannot discover the secret of how to do it.
On the road of evolution they have lost their way; their cousins marched on and they were left behind.
Something of the same strain and anguish seems to have entered the soul of civilised man.
He knows there is something better than himself almost within his grasp, yet he does not know where to seek it or how to find it.
In despair he rages against his fellow man, who is equally lost and equally unhappy.
We have reached a stage in evolution which is not the final stage. We must pass through it quickly, for if we do not, most of us will perish by the way, and the others will be lost in a forest of doubt and fear.
Envy therefore, evil as it is, and terrible as are its effects, is not wholly of the devil. It is in part the expression of an heroic pain, the pain of those who walk through the night blindly, perhaps to a better resting-place, perhaps only to death and destruction. To find the right road out of this despair civilised man must enlarge his heart as he has enlarged his mind. He must learn to transcend self, and in so doing to acquire the freedom of the Universe."
- Betrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness
One can almost imagine that they feel they ought to become men, but cannot discover the secret of how to do it.
On the road of evolution they have lost their way; their cousins marched on and they were left behind.
Something of the same strain and anguish seems to have entered the soul of civilised man.
He knows there is something better than himself almost within his grasp, yet he does not know where to seek it or how to find it.
In despair he rages against his fellow man, who is equally lost and equally unhappy.
We have reached a stage in evolution which is not the final stage. We must pass through it quickly, for if we do not, most of us will perish by the way, and the others will be lost in a forest of doubt and fear.
Envy therefore, evil as it is, and terrible as are its effects, is not wholly of the devil. It is in part the expression of an heroic pain, the pain of those who walk through the night blindly, perhaps to a better resting-place, perhaps only to death and destruction. To find the right road out of this despair civilised man must enlarge his heart as he has enlarged his mind. He must learn to transcend self, and in so doing to acquire the freedom of the Universe."
- Betrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness
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