Comes The Dawn

THE WONDER OF WONDERS

The world will never starve for the want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.

—G. K. CHESTERTON

What did this brilliant Englishman mean by “starve?” The answer, I believe, is to be found in the words of an earlier countryman of his, Robert Browning:

Which lacks food the more,

Body or soul in me?

I starve in soul.

And “soul?” Again Browning: “God is soul, souls I and thou!” Translated into modem American idiom it reads, according to my dictionary, “. . . though having no physical reality, [soul] is credited with the functions of thinking and willing, and hence determines all behavior.” This is to say that you and I will think and will our way through life according to the vitality of our respective souls; our behavior will reflect the health—or sickness—of the life within. What I wish to examine is the part that wonder plays in the evolution of the soul, and its vigor.

The way to bring this matter home is to reflect on how we behave when government pre-empts any activity, be it mail delivery, the aid to those in distress, or whatever. We cease to wonder how mail would be delivered were it not socialized, that is, left to the free and unfettered market. Likewise, with the alleviation of distress. Government has pre-empted that; we pay no heed and no longer wonder how Judeo-Christian charity works its wonders. We fall asleep in these and countless other governmental take-overs. Pre-emption of any activity is, except in the case of a few rare souls, the death of wonder!

When government pre-empts any activity or problem area, it thereby closes off that sector against further inquiry or entrepreneurial action—closes the market that otherwise would sift and sort and put to best use the infinite bits and pieces of knowledge in society.

Pre-emption by coercive take-overs accounts for no more than an infinitesimal fraction of the want of wonder. True, we cheer glamorous spectacles as observed in the first of the following verses but the lack of wonder is dramatically illustrated in the second verse:

Fueled by a million man-made wings of fire,

The rocket tore through the sky . . .

And everybody cheered.

Fueled only by a thought from God,

The seedling urged its way through the thickness of black.

And as it pierced the heavy ceiling of the soil

And launched itself up into outer space . . .

No one even clapped.

That seedling is but one of octillions times octillions—indeed, an infinity—of wonders in the Universe. Why, that seedling itself has wonders not remotely comprehended by man. The lack of wonder about Creation—Nature’s mysteries—is appalling.

And no less appalling is the lack of wonder about what goes on among those of us who inhabit this earth. Let an electric light bulb come into existence and shortly it is commonplace, taken for granted. No longer any wonder about this fantastic phenomenon or the uniqueness of Edison. Wonder tends to die with familiarity!

Awakened during the night by a jet plane flying over my home, I wondered what would have been my reaction had I lived in Athens at the time of Socrates. Probably, “Good Lord, are the Heavens falling in!” A correct reaction, for that’s precisely what’s happening. Harken unto this: that jet plane has thousands upon thousands of parts and not a person who lives knows how to make a single one of them—any more than anyone knows how to make a pencil! And a jet plane resembles that seedling in that it is but an infinitesimal fraction of the goods and services by which we presently live and prosper. There is no lack of wonders, only a dearth of wonder.

Let there be no want of wonder about all things in Creation. Wonder in itself is an acknowledgment of one’s finite status, the pleasant remedy for disastrous know-it-all-ness and stagnation. Wonder inspires the will to grow and, thus, adds vigor to the soul. Wonder and the spirit of inquiry go hand-in-hand. It is the fountainhead of entrepreneurial action—creativity at the human level. The power of wonder is sublime!