After 1500, when this attraction began to decline,
philosophers fell back on some vis a tergo -- instinct of danger
from behind, like Darwin's survival of the fittest; and one of
the greatest minds, between Descartes and Newton -- Pascal -- saw
the master-motor of man in ennui, which was also scientific: "I
have often said that all the troubles of man come from his not
knowing how to sit still." Mere restlessness forces action. "So
passes the whole of life. We combat obstacles in order to get
repose, and, when got, the repose is insupportable; for we think
either of the troubles we have, or of those that threaten us; and
even if we felt safe on every side, ennui would of its own accord
spring up from the depths of the heart where it is rooted by
nature, and would fill the mind with its venom."
"If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast."
Ennui, like Natural Selection, accounted for change, but failed
to account for direction of change. For that, an attractive force
was essential; a force from outside; a shaping influence. Pascal
and all the old philosophies called this outside force God or
Gods. Caring but little for the name, and fixed only on tracing
the Force, Adams had gone straight to the Virgin at Chartres, and
asked her to show him God, face to face, as she did for St.
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