Für den offenbar von der Panspermie-Hypothese beeinflussten Sprecher in Thomas Hardys 'The Aërolite' (1925) begann das menschliche Leid mit der Ankunft eines auf einem Aeroliten reitenden exotischen 'Keims des Bewusstseins' aus einer anderen Welt.
The AëroliteI thought a germ of Consciousness
Escaped on an aerolite
Aions ago
From some far globe, where no distress
Had means to mar supreme delight,
But only things abode that made
The power to feel a gift uncloyed
Of gladsome glow,
And life unendingly displayed
Emotions loved, desired, enjoyed
And that this stray, exotic germ
Fell wanderingly upon our sphere,
After its wingings,
Quickened, and showed to us the worm
That gnaws vitalities native here,
And operated to unblind
Earth’s old-established ignorance
Of stains and stingings,
Which grin no griefs while not opined,
But cruelly tax intelligence
“How shall we,” then the seers said,
“Oust this awareness, this disease
Called sense, here sown,
Though good, no doubt, where it was bred,
And wherein all things work to please?”
Others cried “Nay, we rather would,
Since this untoward gift is sent
For ends unknown,
Limit its registerings to good,
And hide from it all anguishment”
Offenbar hatte auch der Autor Hardy (1840 – 1928) entsprechende Naturvorstellungen:
Thomas Hardy (17.11.1883): "We [human beings] have reached a degree of intelligence which Nature never contemplated when framing her laws, and for which she consequently has provided no adequate satisfactions."
Als Sprecher im reiferen Alter mag ich dagegen die 'stains and stingings' und bin dankbar für die existierenden 'satisfactions' der 'außerirdischen Infektion' durch den Meteoritenkeim, aber stimme auch Thomas Gray in seiner Haltung, zumindest der Jugend gegenüber, zu:
"Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise"
aus: Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1742)
