416 becoming more human by becoming more godlikelove of our greatest good, foretell another future. Part of his work is to
turn that orientation to the future into a changed way of living in the
present.
I now develop, by successive steps, a view of the conduct of life as it
may be inspired by the eff ort to break out of the mummy. I begin by
contrasting this view to the moral conceptions that have exercised the
greatest infl uence in the spiritual history of mankind. I then describe
the marks of a life that affi rms, against the mummy, its own good and
power. Finally, I address three objections.
To orient life in the direction that I here defend, we must be willing
to subordinate, reinterpret, or reject moral ideas and attitudes that, in
varying proportions, have dominated our beliefs about what to do and
about how to live. Here is an enumeration off ered for the sake of clarity
through contrast. I present the contrasts without argument; the argu-
ment is the whole of this book.
Consider fi rst a pair of pre- philosophical moral attitudes whose force
and attractions are never spent. Th ey recur in countless variations, in all
cultures and periods, because they express a plausible (if misguided)
response to the tribulations of life.
Fugitive, tormented, and enigmatic, our existence— Schopenhauer
wrote— puts us in the position of people caught in a storm- tossed ship-
wreck. We cling to one another because all we ultimately have, unless
and until we receive the light of higher insight (like the insight pro-
vided by the overcoming of the world), are one another. When we try
to think through to the bottomless ground of our being, we come up
short or lose ourselves in confusion. However, we return from our de-
lirium to sanity— Hume taught— when we put aside our speculations,
engage with society and custom, and allow ourselves to be rescued by
the company of our fellows. Th e clinging and the engagement are the
best for which we can hope.
We should, according to these views, reject every practice or ideal,
like the struggle against mummifi cation, that threatens the fulfi llment
of this hope. Only solidarity, or ga nized as culture and society or spon-
taneously given as grace among individuals, assuages suff ering. Th e
question that this attitude is unable to answer is, on what basis— in
what form of life and of thought— shall we cling to one another? Some
forms may diminish us; others raise us up. Some may amount to la-