哲学的故事-2

We want to see things now as they will seem forever -- "in the light of eternity." We want to learn to laugh in the face of the inevitable, to smile even at the looming of death. We want to be whole, to coordinate our energies by harmonizing our desires, for coordinated energy is the last word in ethics and politics -- and perhaps in logic and metaphysics, too. "To be a philosopher," said Thoreau, "is not merely to have subtle thoughts, or even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust." We may be sure that if we can but find wisdom, all things else will be added unto us. "Seek ye first the good things of the mind," Bacon admonishes us, "and the rest will either be supplied, or its loss will not be felt." Truth will not make us rich, but it will make us free.